The Average Girl's Guide to Becoming a Super Spy
by WolfRune20855
Summary: Paige Martin is seventeen when her world is flipped upside down with a revelation. Lexi Johnson is nineteen when she has to save her best friend from nazis. Ella Boucher is two days short of twenty when her friends decide they want to be superheroes. The Avarage Girl's Guid follows one epic story full of twists, turns, and Avengers through the eyes of three very different girls.
1. Part 1: Paige

I have a confession to make.

I'm the one who did it.

Now if you don't know what "it" is, you probably haven't been watching the news. Not that I blame you. I didn't use to watch the news either. But things have changed since then. Big things. _Huge_ things. Things that I would never have imagined could happened. It's almost funny now, looking back on it.

Two weeks ago, if you were to ask me what the worst thing to ever happen to me was I probably would have said that it was that I didn't have a room all to myself. Or maybe I would have told you that story of the one time I broke my arm when I was five. Since then I have been chased, shot at, and hit by a car. I have put explosives in one of the most iconic buildings in the United Stated, and then proceeded to blow it up. So, yeah, you could say that my life has changed more than a little.

But, you're probably getting confused.

Lets start at the beginning. That first day that it all happened. The day that my world didn't just flip upside down, it decided to go for a ride on _Space Mountain_ and then to actual space.

* * *

"Please. Please. Please. Please. _Please_." I begged dragging out the last please.

My mother looked at me skeptically. "I'm not sure if you're ready Paige." She said. "Going to trip, even on a school trip, is a big thing. I'm not sure if you can handle it."

"I can handle it." I reassured her. "I can be responsible."

My father laughed, probably because, at the moment, I sounded like a little girl. I wasn't trying to sound little. I was trying to sound mature. The fact that I sounded three years younger than I was was not a good thing.

"I know that you can be responsible." Said my mother. "The question is will you be responsible."

"Yes." I said, trying not to sound like a little girl. "I'll be one hundred percent mature adult."

My mother glanced over at my father who just shrugged. "We technically already paid Joann." He said. "I see no reason for her to not go."

My mother looked at me sternly. "You can go-"

"Yes."

"Under one condition." My face fell. "No fireworks. That means no fountains, sparklers, poppers, smokes, firecrackers, or cakes. None of your homemade stuff either. Nothing that goes boom." She said with emphasis. "Is that understood?" She asked.

"Understood."

* * *

"Paige!" Shouted my friend Lexi from the back of the bus. "Over here." I maneuvered myself past all of the other teenagers, in to the back of the bus, gagging at the smell. Did they not have air conditioning on these buses?

Lexi moved her stuff on to the floor and scooted over in the seat. "So," she said, "what's in the bag?"

I glanced down at my bag, which was falling apart. "What do you mean?" I asked.

"What's in the bag?" She gestured nervously with her hands. "What kind of fire-"

"Shut up." I slammed a hand over her mouth. "Do you want the whole grade to know?"

Lexi's eyes widened as she must of realized what her stupidity would of cost us. "Right." She said. "But you do have some...er...stuff?" She looked at me hopefully.

"Yes."

"How'd you got them past your parents?"

"They're in my toiletries." I said.

"Cool." Said Lexi, opening up a copy of _Forbes_ along with a newspaper. Lexi was, probably, the only Senior who read _Forbes_ and the newspaper.

"Watcha readin?" I asked as the bus started to move.

"Oh, you know." She gestured with her hand. "Stuff on New York."

I sighed. My friend had a weird fettish on the alien invasion of New York last summer. For years, Lexi had been fascinated with comic books and superheroes, such as Superman. But now that there were real superheroes...Lexi just couldn't shut up about them. She got on almost everyone else's nerves with all of her theories and facts.

"They have this awesome interview with Tony Stark." She said.

"Really?" I asked, faking an interest.

"Yep." She said. "Listen to this;

_Forbes_: What makes you a hero, and not a vigilante?

Tony Stark: Perspective. And the mansions. But mostly perspective.

_Forbes_: Do you ever feel guilty for being an arms dealer?

Tony Stark: No. Do you ever feel guilty for being a puppet of global media monoculture? Of course not." She proceeded to read me the entire interview.

I stared out the window as she talked about her favorite real life superhero. It could be relaxing to hear Lexi talk about superheroes. She acted as if these impossible people could make any problem just disappear.

Lexi stopes talking as a teacher moved to the back of the bus. Miss Wilson took a seat right across the isle from Lexi and me.

Lexi sighed. "Great." She muttered, handing me the copy of _Forbes_ and starting on the newspaper. "The old hag had to sit next to us."

I pinched her on the arm, glancing over to see if Miss Wilson had heard her. She didn't show any signs of having heard Lexi's comment, for which I was grateful.

Miss Wilson, otherwise known as the old hag, wasn't actually old. In fact, she couldn't have been any older than twenty five. The reason that she was called "the old hag" was because she had replaced our previous AP Chemistry teacher, the real old hag, about half way through the school year, when she had decided to take a vacation to Mexico.

Rebecca Wilson was tall, smart, and beautiful. She was nice to the majority of the students and made chemistry fun. Half the guys in our grade switched to AP Chemistry just to have her. Everyone loved her.

She was the _worst_ teacher I had ever had.

For some reason, she didn't like me. I had gotten more detentions from her for not turning in homework, then I had my Junior year when I caught the lab on fire. At least once a week I would have to stay behind for an hour with only her for my company.

I banged my head against the seat in front of me and opened the copy of _Forbes_, not really reading it. This was going to be a long trip.


	2. I take a trip to DC

Fifteen hours later we pulled up in front of a hotel. I poked Lexi on the side, waking her up. She moaned and rolled over. "What time is it?" She asked sleepily.

I pulled out my phone and checked it. "One twenty-three." I said with a yawn. I pulled my bag out from underneath the seat and filed out with the rest of the class.

"Alright," said Coach Humphrey, "It's four to a room. No boys in girls room and vise versa. And try to get some sleep. Everyone has to be back at the bus by ten. The people you're lodging with will be your group for tomorrow. Got it? Good." He finished without waiting for us to answer and started handing us key cards.

Lexi came up behind me and yawned. "Did you catch what he said?" She asked.

I took two key cards from the coach and handed one of them to Lexi. "Four to a room." I said.

"Who are we with?" She asked sleepily.

"I don't know." I shouldered my bag and headed off to the hotel.

* * *

Here it is." I said as we stopped in front of our room. "Floor four, room twenty-eight." I stuck the key card in the slot and turned the doorknob.

I stepped in and took a look at our surroundings. It was pretty much the same as every other hotel I'd stayed at. Two Queen beds, a pull out couch, a TV, and a mini fridge, and coffee maker.

"I need some of this." Lexi said, moving to the already full coffee maker.

I flopped down on one of the beds, pushing off the pink suitcase that was already there, and pulled out my laptop. I was extremely tired, but I didn't want to go to sleep. "Lexi, can you get me a cup?" I asked my best friend.

"Sure." Lexi said.

I logged in to _tumblr_ and started to scroll through my dash.

"Who's do you think this is?" Lexi said, handing me my cup of coffee, and picking up the suitcase I had thrown on the floor. She sat down next to me and pulled out her own laptop. "Let's see." She said. "Who would choose such a gender based color?"

As if answering her question, the door burst open and omitted a laughing Helen Willis and Jess Garza. They stopped laughing when they saw us.

"What are you doing in here?" Asked Helen, tossing her perfectly blonde hair over her shoulder.

"Now we know who would choose such a gender based color Paige." Said Lexi, not bothering to look up from her laptop or answer Helen's question. "I think we could of figured it out sooner though." She said and smiled wickedly at me from over her laptop.

If there was one thing in the world that Lexi loved more than superheroes it was messing with Helen and Jess. Helen Willis and Jess Garza were the "popular" girls of our grade. They were the ones who always had a date, fixed their hair perfectly, ect. They always had boys throwing themselves at them and rubbed it in the other girls' faces. I couldn't care less.

Lexi thought that they were idiots.

Because Lexi thought that they were the stupidest people to walk the earth, she would do everything in her power to make them confused and angry. It was actually really funny to watch. Lexi would use big words and weird facts to confuse them, which would make them angry.

"It's not a gender based color." Protested Jess.

"Yes it is." Said Lexi. She looked at Jess. "Do you know why pink is a gender based color? Why everything for girls is pink?"

"No." Helen answered before Jess could. She sat down on the other bed and turned on the TV. I glanced over at her as some celebrity TV show started playing.

Helen looked like a model. She always did. She always had her makeup perfectly applied and her hair perfectly strait. I had always been a little jealous of it. My hair was naturally curly and a not quite red color. It always did horrible in the humid weather and got all frizzy. Helen's best friend, Jess, was just as pretty as Helen in exactly the opposite way. If you looked at them there was no question to why they were popular.

"Did you bring anything Piage?" Asked Helen. The question took me by surprise.

"Any what?" I asked.

"Any fireworks." Helen answered. "Everyone knows that Paige Martin is the fireworks girl." I didn't know that they knew me as anything at all.

"No." I lied. I didn't want these girls to know about them. They'd probably tell Miss Wilson and I'd have detention for the rest of my life.

"That's to bad." Said Helen.

"Do you know what you should play?" Asked Lexi, glancing over her computer. "You should play BBCA."

"Why?" Asked Helen. I was surprised that she even listened to Lexi.

"Because all that they play is makeup shows." Lexi said, lying through her teeth. I looked over at her, wondering what she was up to. All that BBCA played was _Next Generation_ reruns, and _Star Trek_ was likely to make these girls mad.

"Really?" Asked Jess rather stupidly. I knew that the two of them dumbed themselves down to get attention from boys, but I didn't think it just came naturally.

"Definitely."

Lexi took the remote from Jess and changed the channel. Before either of the girls realized what was in the TV, she took the batteries out of the remote and hid them under a pillow. She smiled mischievously at me and raised a finger to her lips. I looked back at the computer and ignored the protests that were beginning to come form the other girls.


	3. I meet a guy named Steve

"They have a Captain America exhibit Paige." Lexi looked up from the paper she was reading. "Isn't that awesome?"

"I guess." I shrugged. I didn't really care about these superheroes the way that Lexi did. I was looking more forward to seeing the _Mr. Rogers_ sweater. He'd been my childhood superhero.

"I guess?" Lexi gawked at me. "How can you just guess? Because, I'm telling you, it's awesome." She paused and glanced around. "Let's go." She said.

"Aren't we supposed to stay with Helen and Jess?" I asked looking at the other two girls. The teachers had said not to leave your group, and if Miss Wilson caught me with only one other person...

Lexi sighed and rolled her eyes. "Do you really want to stay with them all day?"

The answer, of course, was no.

As if Lexi could read my mind, she pulled my hand and dragged me behind her. "Now you have no choice." She said. "If anyone asks you, I abducted you. Or I forced you here at gunpoint. Or I-"

"Or we could just tell them the truth." I interrupted her.

"Tell them the truth?" Lexi scoffed. "You're such a goody-goody sometimes."

"Thanks." I muttered as we entered the Captain America exhibit.

They'd gone all out with the exhibit. I suppose it was because he had saved the world last year, but still, they appeared to have spared no expense. They had everything. His biography, videos from the war, his old uniform. I don't think they could have made it better if they tried. I pressed play on one of the videos, when my phone rang, disrupting the silence around me. I glanced at the caller ID. It was my mom.

"Sorry." I whispered to a Asian tourist as I took my phone and headed to the hallway. "Hello?" I asked answering it.

"Lucille Paige Martin where the hell are your fireworks?"

Shit.

"Um..."

"You brought them with you, didn't you?" She shouted from the other end of the phone.

"Um..." I glanced around. I was getting weird looks from several of the people in the hallway. Surely they could hear my mother on the phone. "Can you yell a little quieter mom?" I whispered.

"What?" My mother yelled even louder. "Don't use that tone of voice on me young lady."

"Sorry." I apologized to her. "It's just I'm in the middle of a museum, and everyone's looking at me weird."

"As they should." She said, but her voice had returned to normal. "Paige, did you bring your fireworks with you?"

The quickest way out was the truth as my dad always said.

"Yes." I muttered.

"That's it." She said, her voice rising. "We are coming up to get you."

"No." I shouted, making everyone filing past me stare at me. I ignored them. "Don't do that." I said. "You can ground me when I get home or whatever, just don't come get me." I could only imagine the detentions.

"Fine." She said coldly from the other side. "But as soon as you come home, I am taking away every explosive you have. And no setting anything off on the trip. I will find out. I will. Got it?" And without waiting for me to answer, she hung up.

I sank down against the wall. My perfect trip, suddenly wasn't perfect anymore. I sighed. Now I'd just be counting down the days till I was grounded.

"You look disappointed." Said a voice above me. I lifted my head to see a tall guy with a hat covering his head. He sat down next to me, so that I could see him at my level. He had a nice face, it was good looking and slightly familiar.

"How could you tell?" I asked him looking down at my phone.

The man just shrugged. "What happened?" He asked me after a while.

I laughed. "My mom found me out."

"Found you out?"

"I'm on a school trip, and I brought fireworks." I explained.

"You have fireworks?" The man looked slightly surprised. "On you right now?"

"No." I said, shaking my head. "They're on the bus." I was surprised that I was telling this man these things. Why? I had never seen him before in my life. He could report me to the police. I was sure that it was illegal for a seventeen year old to posses fireworks.

"That's good." Said the man, standing up. "I suppose that you're grounded now?" He asked offering me a hand.

I took it and stood up. "Yep." I said. I glanced around. There was something eerily familiar about this man. I felt like I knew him. "What's your name?" I asked him.

"Steve." He said offering me his hand once more.

I shook it. "Nice to meet you Steve. I'm Paige." I said.

"Nice to meet you Paige." Steve said. He glanced at the sign. "Do you like the Avengers?" He asked.

"The Avengers? Is that what they're called?" Steve nodded. "My best friend really likes superheroes." I explained. "She keeps trying to come up with a name for them. I'll have to tell her the Avengers."

"Yeah." Said Steve. "You should."

I sighed. "I'm going to have to drag her away from the exhibit now." I said. "It was nice meeting you Steve."

"The pleasure was mine." Steve said. And with that I turned back to the Captain America exhibit to search for Lexi.


	4. Lexi thinks Steve is Captain America

"The Avengers. That's a good one. Where'd you come up with that?" Lexi asked with a mouthful of burrito.

"A guy I met in the hallway came up with it." I said taking a bite of my own burrito. It was good. My mom wasn't a big fan of fast food or anything unhealthy, so whenever I did get to eat some it was an occasion.

"What kind of guy?" Asked Lexi. "Was he cute?"

"That's gross." I said. "He was like twenty-five."

"Fine." Muttered Lexi. "But was he cute?"

"I guess?"

It was good enough for Lexi. "What was his name?"

"Steve." I said. That part I did know.

Lexi's mouth dropped. "Paige!" She screamed. "You met Captain America."

"Or a guy named Steve." I suggested.

"No." Lexi shook her head. "You met Captain America." She set down her burrito. "Do you have any idea what a big deal this is?"

"No." I answered.

"Well, it's a huge deal." Said Lexi. "You just met the first ever real superhero. What did he talk to you about?"

"Nothing much." I said, not wanting to tell Lexi about the incident with my mom. She'd be depressed then as well.

"Nothing much." She said, writing in a notebook. "So did you talk about the weather?"

"And if I did?"

"Then I want to hear how Captain America talks about the weather."

"That's if he was Captain America."

"He was." Lexi said.

I took another bite out of my burrito. Maybe telling Lexi hadn't been the best idea.

"We've got to go back to the exhibit." Lexi said.

I sighed. "You go do that." I said. "I'll finish my burrito."

"You do that." And just like that, Lexi was gone.

Looking back on it, I wish that I'd chased after Lexi and maybe gone to search for Captain America, because there was no way that we would of found him, and then I'd be at home with my mom and dad, and none if this would have ever happened. Except I'd be grounded. But I didn't. And there was no way of being able to tell then just how crazy my world would become.

Instead, I watched her leave, bumping in to some couple in their mid thirties, and quickly apologizing.

I'd always found Lexi's obsession with superheroes a little funny. My mom thought that Lexi liked them because her dad had left her mom when Lexi was three. She said that Lexi really had no one to look up to, no father figure. And with her mom on the late shifts at the plant, and no one ever at the house besides Lexi herself, I could see why my mom thought that. But I didn't believe that it was true. I think that Lexi saw superheroes as people who could fix the world, and to a further extent her problems. And while I didn't think that Thor would crash through the window with the magical solutions to her problems, I did understand why she loved them so much.

My eyes roamed over the park around me. There was an elderly couple having a picnic. The couple that Lexi had bumped in to were now entering one of the restaurants. A few feet away from me, a couple of kids played tag, their mom to busy with their infant brother to stop them or warn them. My eyes roamed over the park again, and stopped on a figure walking right towards me. Miss Wilson.

I shot up from where I was sitting and ran down the sidewalk, taking my burrito with me. It would've been bad enough for Miss Wilson to find me and Lexi without Jess and Helen, but just me...it would be endless detentions on top of a grounding.

I darted around the back of the building and ducked behind the dumpster, gagging at the smell.

Miss Wilson came around the corner and glanced around. I could hear the click of her heels on the pavement as she searched for me. I held my breath as she approached the dumpster. With each click of her heels I could feel the millions of detentions that she was going to give me. I tensed up as she approached, getting ready to jump out and run for it, when the click of her heels stopped. A second later, she receded back.

I let out the breath that I'd been holding, which was a mistake. _I can't believe my luck_, I thought just before something hard hit me on the back of my head.


	5. I get kidnapped by a very nice coat

Out of my list of things that I would not recommend being knocked unconscious in an alleyway is in the top ten at least. Waking up in an abandoned warehouse with several guns aimed at your head is my number one. If you can avoid it try not to end up kidnapped in an abandoned warehouse.

I opened my eyes to see a large light swinging back and fourth and back and fourth. To be honest, it was kind of cliché. If I ever get kidnapped again, I hope the kidnappers come up with something a bit more original than a warehouse with bright lights.

I squinted my eyes and took in the rest of the room. My hands and feet were bound to a chair. A group of men stood around me with guns pointed right at my little red head. One of them noticed that I had woken up and said something. It took my mind a couple minutes to realize that he had spoken in a different language.

_Was it Russian?_

One of his friends, this one with pepper black hair, probably the one that was in charge, said something in return. The one that had noticed that I was awake backed in to the shadows as the one in charge stepped foward. Towards me.

He came to stand before me and smiled. The kind of sickly sweet/creepy smile that all the James Bond villains smile. "I'm glad to see that you have finally awoken." He said in thickly accented English.

I eyed the man. I had been out, that much was clear, but for how long? Lexi probably would've noticed by now and told the teachers. And they would have called the police. There was probably an _Amber Alert_ out for me. That is, if Lexi hadn't met Captain America. If she had met Captain America then she'd probably not even notice that I was gone.

The man looked at me like he was expecting me to say something in return. Honestly, I didn't know what on earth he expected so I just said, "I like your coat." That was it. No what am I doing here? No what do you want with me? I just told him that I liked his coat, without even a stutter.

"You like my coat?" The man asked confused. It obviously wasn't the thing that he had expected me to say.

"Yeah." I said nodding. "It's a nice coat. What's it made out of?"

I should have been scared. _Hell, I should have been terrified_. But for some strange reason, I wasn't. I was tied to a chair with no chance of escape, facing a group of men, in the middle of a strange warehouse. I should have peed my pants by now, but instead all that I could think of was how nice my captor's coat was.

_Strange, right?_

My captor obviously found it strange. He glanced back at his comrades with a curious expression then back at me. "Is this your way of interrogating me?" He asked.

_What?_ Interrogating him? Who did this man think I was? _The Mafia?_ I wouldn't be able to interrogate him if I wanted to. I didn't know how!

"Um..." I looked at the Russian in the nice coat. "Would it help if I said yes?"

My captor shook his head and muttered something under his breath in Russian before focusing back on me. "Being smart will not help your cause."

_Okay..._

"What do you want?"

He smiled. "That is more like it." He said and looked down at me. "I want to know what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plans are."

_S.H.I.E.L.D.?_ Why would I know what S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plans are? I was a normal American teenager not a top secret spy.

"W-what?" I sputtered.

"You heard me perfectly fine."

"I don't know anything about S.H.I.E.L.D. Why would I?"

"Because of your parents."

My parents? My mom was a doctor and my dad worked at the plant with everyone else in the town. Why would my parents know about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plans?

"Listen man," I said. "You've got the wrong girl."

The man shook his head. "Maybe you need my help jogging your memory."

I gulped. Whatever "jogging my memory" was, it couldn't be good. The man walked over to a small table that I had missed when I scanned the room earlier. He picked up a long knife and smiled that James Bond villain smile again. I watched the blade glint as he walked over to me.

"Now you can either answer our questions or-" a scream cut him off.

Both Nice Coat and my heads turned as it was followed by the sound of gunfire. My captor said something in Russian as one of the gunmen appeared out of the shadows. The big burly guy pulled something out of his pocket and shoved it over my mouth and nose. I'd spent enough time in a lab to recognize chloroform when I smelled it. I felt myself beginning to black out as the gunfire got closer and then the hand disappeared from my face. A second later the gunfire stopped followed by something thudding to the ground. The last thing that I saw before everything went back was-

"_Miss Wilson?"_


	6. I run in to my teacher at a restaurant

"What happened last night?" Lexi asked, leaning against the headboard of our bed.

I looked up from my laptop at her, her brown eyes staring through me trying to get answers. Answers that I wanted as well.

"Why?" I asked.

Lexi raised an eyebrow. "Really? You were carried in to the room at thee in the morning and Miss Wilson said that you had passed out from drinking to much. You don't drink. You don't even have a fake ID."

I shrugged. "Honestly, I don't know what happened last night."

I would have liked to know. Miss Wilson said that I had gone drinking with some friends, Jess and Helen to be exact, and I had drank to much and passed out. She said that Jess and Helen carried me back where Miss Wilson had found us, not only breaking curfew but under age drinking as well. Miss Wilson had found me in the perfect position to hand me a lifetime of detentions, but instead she had just helped them carry me to our room. It didn't add up.

The strangest thing was, even though Jess and Helen backed up Miss Wilson's every claim, I didn't remember going drinking. The last thing that I remembered was angry Russians and the Miss Wilson saying something to me that I couldn't quite make out. I had no memory whatsoever of even talking to Jess or Helen, but angry Russians...I'd always had an active imagination. It was entirely possible that the whole angry Russians thing was just the beer getting to me.

"What do you think happened?" I asked Lexi.

"Me?" Lexi laughed. "I don't believe a word that comes out of their mouth. I think that they kidnapped the real you and I'm currently talking to a clone."

"I'm not a clone."

"That's exactly the kind of thing that a clone would say." Lexi said.

I rolled my eyes.

Lexi closed her laptop. "Well, if your hangover's not too bad, we should visit the Washington Monument. I promised my mom that I'd get a picture in front of it."

I shook my head. "I don't have a hangover." I said.

"That's good." Lexi said with a smile. She tossed me my bag and glanced at me. "Do you have a camera 'cause I think I left mine at home."

"No, but I have a phone."

* * *

There was absolutely nothing special about the Washington monument. It was just a tall white obelisk, just like the "modern art" one that the art department had installed in to the middle of the courtyard last year. At least that one had color. This one was just white...and big. Really _really_ big.

I fished my phone out of my backpack and snapped a picture of Lexi, who was holding two thumbs up ridiculously close to her face. I laughed as I showed her the picture on the screen. "This good?"

"Yeah." Lexi said, taking my phone from me. "Selfie time." She said and snapped a picture.

"Hey!" I shouted and snatched my phone away from her. I looked down at the selfie. I looked horrible. My eyes were half closed and I was making a derp face. Still, I didn't delete the photo. Lexi looked just as bad and I could use it against her later.

"What do you want to do now?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know." Lexi bounced up and down on her toes. "We could go drinking with Helen and Jess."

I rolled my eyes. "I never went drinking with Helen and Jess."

"Then where'd you go?"

"No idea." I glanced at her. "You want to get lunch?"

"Are you paying?"

"Sure." I said.

Fifteen minutes later we were seated on the patio of a small cafe, staring at the menus placed in front of us by an overly peppy waitress. I groaned inwardly as I notice Miss Wilson sitting in the corner with some people that I'd never seen before. She glanced briefly at me before going back to talking to her group of friends. _Would I never be rid of that woman?_

I glanced at Lexi sitting across from me. She was staring intently at her menu. I couldn't tell whether or not she was actually reading it.

"What are you going to get?" I asked.

Lexi was silent for a moment longer than was usual for her. Even when she was mad at me, she never was quiet about it. It was usually the opposite. I should know. I had been on the receiving end of her rants too many times. Lexi and I had been best friends since sixth grade when Jess, my old best friend, had ditched me for Helen. I'd had no one to hang out with, more importantly eat lunch with. So I'd sat down at the only open table in the cafeteria. The one where the weird comic book girl sat. Shed started talking to me, and then..._BOOM!_ Next thing I knew we were best friends. So, yeah, I could tell when something was bothering Lexi.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Paige." She said, as if she hadn't heard me ask the question. "I think that man over there is looking at us."

"Don't be redicu-" I stopped short as I turned and saw the man that she was speaking of.

A man sat not twenty feet away from us, not interested in his menu at all. His dark black hair was sprinkled with flecks of grey. His mouth was set in a hardened straight line. His black eyes were staring right at me. But the thing that scared me about this man was not the fact that he looked like he wanted to kill me or the fact that his finger was stroking his knife. Yes, those things were most defiantly contributing factors to his scariness, but they were not what made him scary. The thing that made this man terrifying was the fact that he wore a rather nice woolen jacket that was much to warm for the April weather. A jacket that I'd seen before.

"We need to go." I said.

"What?"

The man seemed to be noticing my stress and started getting out of his chair.

"Now!" I stood up and yanked Lexi out of her chair.

The whole restaurant stood up with me.


	7. Ms Wilson carries a gun

One time, in fourth grade, I got to take the class hamster, Rascal, home for the weekend. It was something that I had worked for weeks to earn. I was so happy that I finally got to take the class pet home. Rascal was home for two hours before Aiden, my two year old brother, decided that Rascal wanted to be his friend. Long story short, my baby brother broke Rascal's back and for the rest of the year I was the girl who killed the hamster. Every one of my classmates condemned me and nobody talked to me for three weeks. For three long weeks the only interaction with another child my age that I got was weird looks from the other kids.

Those weird looks were a lot like the ones that I was getting from the majority of the restaurant. I was even getting one from Lexi.

"Paige?" she muttered as the entire cafe froze. It was a question. She wanted to know if I knew what was going on. The answer was no.

Lexi's muttering seemed to break the jacket man out of whatever trance he was in. He rushed towards us, a gun in his hand. _Where did that come from? _I did the only sensible thing that I could think of. I ran. I ducked behind a trash can as he fired his first shot.

As Lexi ducked beside me, a van full of men holding guns pulled up to the curb. The table where Miss Wilson sat jumped in to action. Her two friends, both tall men in black suites, pulled out guns and started fighting at Nice Jacket and his friends. If you could call it fighting. They were both outnumbered seven to one. But for some reason, that didn't seem to bother the guys.

"Now I really want to know what's going on," Lexi said.

"I have no-" what I meant to say was 'I have no clue', but I didn't get to finish my sentence.

"Girls," Miss Wilson's voice interrupted me, "there's a van parked around the corner. I need you to go there and wait. Okay?"

"No." I shook my head, "I want to know what's going on. Why is there an angry Russian shooting at us?"

"They told me that you'd be a handful." Miss Wilson smiled a little bit. It was weird to see her smile. I mean, of course I'd seen her smile before, but the middle of a firefight was not the time or the place for my AP chem teacher to be smiling.

"They?"

"It doesn't matter," she said, "get to the van. My friends will take care of this."

It wasn't good enough for me, but apparently it was good enough for Lexi. She grabbed my hand and pulled me out from behind the trash can. I glanced at Miss Wilson as we ran off the patio and in to the street behind the cafe. She was a taking a gun out of her pocket. _A gun? Why was Miss Wilson carrying a gun? _Ideas began racing through my mind when Lexi stopped short, causing me to bump in to her.

"Oof," I looked to where Lexi was staring. She was looking at a big black van, the one that Miss Wilson had told us to run to. But it wasn't the van that had caught her attention so much as the logo on the side. It was an eagle of some sort. I couldn't recall seeing it before, but Lexi looked as if she was about to pass out.

"What is it?"

"If I didn't know better," said Lexi, "I'd say that this was a dream. Or some sort of really bad fanfiction."

"Really bad fanfiction?" I glanced at the symbol again, "You mean that's-"

"The symbol of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, also known as-"

"S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Yep," Lexi swallowed, "What's it doing out here?"

"I don't know, but Miss Wilson..."

"Paige," Lexi said looking at me, "I think that Miss Wilson's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent."

For once, I didn't disagree with Lexi's theory.


	8. Ms Wilson's friend is mean

Lexi was staring at me. She wanted me to say something. Anything. I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what to say. _What do you say when you discover that your teacher is actually a secret agent? _

"Did you know?" Lexi asked.

"What?" I glanced at her, "How could I-" I stopped talking as the sound of running feet came around the corner. My secret agent teacher and her friends stopped in front of me and Lexi.

"Good," Miss Wilson was not even panting from running in heels, "I'm glad to see that you made it."

Of all the things that I expected my least favorite teacher turned secret agent to say 'I'm glad to see that you made it' was not one of them.

"I'm sure that you have some questions," Miss Wilson said.

_Duh_.

"But now is not the time nor place for them. We need to get you safe. Lexi, Agent Smith will take you back to the hotel," Miss Wilson gestured towards one of her friends.

I shook my head. "No," I said. I was not going anywhere without Lexi. She was my best friend. She always had my back and I always had hers. If she left...let's just say I'm not quite sure who I am without my best friend.

Miss Wilson sighed. "Paige," she said, speaking to me like I was a little kid who had refused to give up their favorite toy, "we will do this later. Right now we need to get you to a safe place."

"Like hell you do," the words fell out of my mouth, "but you also need to get Lexi to a safe place."

Lexi, for her part, had been surprisingly quiet. I didn't know if it was the shock or what it was, but the girl who seemed to always have something to say suddenly had nothing to say.

"Lexi does need to get to a safe place," Miss Wilson said in agreement.

"Good," I said and nudged my best friend. Lexi gave me a weak smile.

"Lexi go with Agent Smith," Miss Wilson ordered.

"What!?"

"I agreed with you that Lexi needed to go to a safe place. Right now the safest place for her is away from you."

"What!?" this time it was Lexi.

Miss Wilson seemed a bit surprised that Lexi had suddenly decided to talk. "Someone is chasing Paige," Miss Wilson didn't elaborate who the someone was exactly.

"And I have to go because?"

"This is in order to keep the two of you safe," Miss Wilson insisted, "Now go with Agent Smith."

Lexi laughed. "It's funny that you think that I'm going to leave my best friend with a bunch of mindless government suits."

_Mindless government suits? _Lexi's opinion of S.H.I.E.L.D. had changed quickly.

"You will go," Miss Wilson ordered, "or you will go to jail. I'm sure that you'll have a nice time visiting your father."

Lexi froze. Her dad wasn't something that she talked about. In fact, she never talked about him. Nobody in the entire school except me even knew what had happened to her dad, and even I didn't know all of the details. Miss Wilson's threat, no doubt, hit home.

"Go to hell," Lexi muttered, but she followed Agent Smith. I watched my best friend disappear around the corner then turned to my chemistry teacher, my opinion of her now lower than ever.

"Let's go," Miss Wilson said and opened the car door.

I stood where I was, my feet rooted to the pavement. "I won't go with you until you tell me why there are Russians chasing me?"

"Now is not the-"

"They want to use you to get to your parents," the agent standing behind Miss Wilson, who I had ignored until now, spoke up. I glanced at him. He was relatively handsome, Lexi might of thought that he was cute, but his face was like a marble statue, no emotion.

"Why?" I asked the agent, "My parents don't have anything to hide."

"Your real parents," the agent said.

"M-my real parents?" I sputtered, "What do you mean my real parents?"

"Ward," Miss Wilson warned, "Now is not the time."

Ward shrugged. "She said she'll come with us if we tell her."

"Tell me what?"

Miss Wilson shook her head. "This is not the-"

"Tell me what?"

Agent Ward looked at me and it almost seemed as if he felt sorry for me. "You're adopted."


	9. I meet the head of SHIELD

My name is Lucille Paige Martin. I was born June 6, 1995. I have a little brother name Aiden. He is eleven. My parent are Stephen and Joann Martin. My mother is a doctor. My father works part time at the plant. They are not my real parents. _My whole life is a lie._

Those six words kept bouncing around in my head, even as the van pulled to a stop and I was led to an empty room save for a desk and two chairs. Even as they took my backpack from me, essentially stealing everything I had.

_My whole life is a lie. _

I sat down in one of the chairs. It was uncomfortable. Still, had I been standing, I probably would have passed out.

_My whole life is a lie._

Why hadn't my parents told me? Why would they not tell me? Who are my real parents? Am I some sort of alien? Is that why S.H.I.E.L.D. is interested in me? Will they dissect me or something? Does Aiden know? Is he adopted as well?

_My whole life is a lie. _

My head snapped up as a woman walked in to the room. She was tall with brown hair and brown eyes. She looked like Robin from _How I Met Your Mother_. She smiled at me. It was a nice smile.

_My whole life is a lie_.

She sat down across from me and I finally noticed a name tag that read Maria Hill.

_My whole life is a lie. _

"I'm sorry for the rough treatment of Agents Ward and Wilkerson," Agent Maria Hill said.

"Who?"

"Your chemistry teacher and the agent that accompanied her."

_My whole life is a lie. _

"I'm sure that you have several questions," Maria Hill said, "You can ask me any of them."

"Am I an alien?"

"No."

"Who are my birth parents?"

"They are two very high ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."

"Is that all that you can tell me about them?"

"Yes." Agent Hill replied, "Any other questions?"

"What about Aiden?"

"Who?"

"My brother," I clarified, "Is he actually my brother by blood?"

"No."

I knew it had been a long shot. I could remember his birth.

"Can I go home?"

"Not until we find the people who are chasing you."

_So, no then._

"Why am I in an interrogation room?"

"It was the most private room that was available."

"Can I have my backpack back?"

"You mean the one with the fireworks in it?" Maria Hill shook her head, "No."

"Can I have my cell phone back?"

"No."

"Can I have anything back?"

"Not at the moment."

I groaned. This was not fun.

"Can I leave this room?"

Maria Hill glanced at the door. "If you can stay quiet and not touch anything I can show you around. Can you do that?"

I silently nodded not trusting myself actually to say or promise anything.

_My whole life is a lie._

* * *

After fifteen minutes of exploring the S.H.I.E.L.D. base that I was being held at, I decided I liked Maria Hill. She was nice, but my bar for S.H.I.E.L.D. agents wasn't that high seeing as I had only met three others and the nicest one had told me that I was adopted.

The base where I was being held was nice too. I hadn't seen much of it besides the food court. Agent Hill had bought me a smoothie and then we'd sat down. She wasn't exactly talkative, but she still talked.

Maria Hill was Fury's right hand man-or gal since she's a girl. She knew all of the Avengers. She was even one of the people that helped them assemble. Besides that she didn't say much of anything. She was mostly interested in me. She wanted to know about my life. So I told her, after all there wasn't much to tell.

I told her of the life that I'd thought was real until Agent Ward had burst my bubble. Personally, I wish that he hadn't burst my bubble. It was a nice bubble. I would have been happy living in it the rest of my life.

I told her about my parents, who had been happily married for twenty-seven years. I told her about Lexi and her obsession with superheroes. I told her about my little brother Aiden. I'd told her about how much I loved chemistry as a subject but hated The Old Hag. She had spit out her Coke when I called Miss Wilson the Old Hag.

It was nice to tell somebody.

Halfway through me telling her about the horrible detentions that Miss Wilson would give me, her phone rang.

"Maria Hill," she answered it, "yes sir," she said after a moment and then hung up the phone. She turned to me. "Fury wants to see me," she said.

* * *

Apparently when Agent Maria Hill had said '_Fury wants to see me_' what she had really meant was '_Fury wants to talk to you while I stand in the back of the room and look boss_'. Maybe she didn't know the difference between the two. Maybe Fury had really just asked to see her and she brought me along as well. Either way, I ended up sitting in Fury's office, which was nice, but intimidating. Extremely intimidating.

I was sitting in the seat in front of Fury's desk like a child who had been called to the principle's office. I should know. I had been to the principle's office my share of times.

Director Fury sat across from me, his eyes-or eye-seeing right through me, like he could read my ever most thoughts. It was kind of creepy.

"So," I said, trying to break the uncomfortable silence, "you wanted to see me?"

"Yes," Fury studied me for a second longer. He reached under his desk and pulled out a worn down backpack. My backpack. "I was wondering what these are." He reached in to my backpack and pulled out my toiletries, which actually held my fireworks.

"Umm," I muttered, "they're fireworks."

"I can see that," said Fury. He pulled out a few sparklers. "However, these are the only ones that I can reconize. I would like to know what the rest of them are."

I looked at the rest of the explosives in my toiletries. "The grey ones are _Gandalfs_. The red and yellow ones are _Iron Mans_. The blue ones are _Spocks_."

"Why have I never heard of these before?"

I shrugged. "They're my own recipe. Why?"

Fury smiled. "Paige," he said, "Agent Hill has told me that you're less than happy about having to stay with us."

_Duh_. Nobody wanted to be held against their will, even if it was for their own safety.

"However, we can not let you leave until the threat at hand has been taken care of, and maybe even not after that."

"The threat at hand? You mean the Russians."

"Yes and no," Fury looked at me, "There is more than one group chasing you. You have recently become a very important piece on the board."

"Is this because of my birth parents?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me who they are?"

"That is information for another time Paige," Fury said, "Right now we need to keep you safe."

"And?" I asked as Fury paused, maybe for dramatic effect.

"Paige," Fury said, "how would you like to become a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?"


	10. Steve is actually Captain America

For six weeks, nothing happened.

Every day, I trained with Agent Hill. She was nice and a good trainer, but there was just something a little off about her. I knew that she wanted to tell me about my parents, my birth parents. I knew this because I asked her every day and every day she would not tell me.

Not long after my conversation with Nick Fury, I had been given permanent living quarters in the base. It was a small room with a bed in the corner, a desk, and a closet. I had added a mirror along with a poster of the Avengers that I had ripped out of a magazine. I had done it mostly because it was what Lexi would have done and I missed my best friend, as well as my family. This had led to me getting most of the photos from my phone developed, even the ugly one of me and Lexi in front of the Washington Monument.

Somewhere in the third week that I had been staying at the base they'd let me call my parents. I didn't know exactly what they had been told so I hadn't known what to expect. To be honest, I hadn't known what to say either. I was all prepared to be angry, but the minute that Aiden answered the phone I broken down crying. I just couldn't be mad at my family.

They had been told that I had been offered a once-in-a-lifetime scholarship to a very prestigious school and I had to start right away. I didn't know whether or not they actually believed this. I had never been an all A student or an extreme suck up, so there was really no reason for me to receive a scholarship. Even if they didn't believe what S.H.I.E.L.D. had told them, they didn't say anything. They told me to stay safe and to try not to blow anything up.

After that they put Lexi on the phone. I told her everything that had happened from the moment that she left, including me joining S.H.I.E.L.D. She wasn't exactly happy about that. While she still loved superheroes, it seemed as if Lexi had gotten over the novelty of a secret spy organization. So much, in fact, that she had joined a group of hactivist called The Rising Tide. I didn't know what to think about this, after all I often heard S.H.I.E.L.D. agents complaining about this group. Apparently they had been a thorn in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s side for far to long. If they knew that my best friend was one of them...I didn't know what they'd do. But Lexi seemed to enjoy The Rising Tide. She had always been good with computers(Lexi was good at practically anything that she set her mind to). She swore to me several times over that she wouldn't try to hack S.H.I.E.L.D. She wasn't even sure if she could.

They didn't make any progress on the Russian thing. Not that they would tell me if they did. Even though I was technically a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, I wasn't kept in any of the loops. Something about me only being Clearance Level 1. I didn't really care. Most days I just moped around the base missing my old life.

It was after one of my training sessions with Maria Hill that I met them. I was walking down the hallway towards the area where I lived when I spotted a man in a navy blue suit and a woman with bright red hair, a little bit lighter than my own. Though most of them where nice enough, I didn't really care for the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, so I usually wouldn't have bothered if I hadn't seen the man before. He had been wearing a hat then, but I knew for sure that it was him.

Steve from the museum.

The one that Lexi had thought was Captain America.

It hit me a second later that there was a very high chance that he actually was Captain America and that Lexi had probably been right. Maybe I didn't give Lexi as much credit as she deserved for her crazy theories. A lot of them were turning out to be right.

I probably should have turned around and walked the other way, after all it wasn't as if I was a person worth talking to, but instead I just froze where I was. I don't exactly know why I did it, maybe it was the shock of one of Lexi's theories being right, but I stood rooted to my spot as Steve and his red haired friend walked right past me. A second later Steve did a double take.

"Paige?" he said walking towards me, "What are you doing here?"

I was a little surprised that he even remembered who I was, so it took me a while to stammer out my response, "I-I'm staying here."

_Gosh I sounded like an idiot_. It didn't seem to phase Steve though.

"You're staying here? Why?"

"You two know each other?" My eyes snapped instantly to the red haired woman standing at Steve's side.

We could have been sisters. It was as if I had stepped in to a time portal and was looking at a much older version of myself. She had red hair that was brighter than mine, seeing as mine had a brown tint to it. Her blue-gray eyes were different from my own grey ones, but only slightly. She was standing with her arms crossed in front of her chest and a gun strapped to her side. She was, very obviously, not a woman that you wanted to be on your bad side.

"Kind of," Steve was saying as I examined the woman, "I met Paige at the Captain America exhibit where her mother was yelling at her over the phone because she brought her fireworks on a school trip." He looked at me, "Paige, this is Natasha Romanoff."

My jaw dropped. Had I been Lexi I'm sure that I would have squealed, as it was, I did my best not to pass out. _The_ Black Widow was standing right in front of me! Of all of the New York superheroes, she was my favorite. I was all for empowered women.

"Um..." I offered her my hand not knowing what to do, "It's nice to meet you."

"The pleasures mine," Romanoff said shaking my hand, "though you didn't answer Steve's question. Why are you staying here?"

"Right," I muttered, "it's a long story."

"My ears are open."

"Right...um...so not long after I talked to you, I got kidnapped by some Russians trying to get some information out of me."

"Why?" Natasha Romanoff asked.

"They thought that I knew something about S.H.I.E.L.D. because my parents, at least the people that I thought were my parents, aren't actually my parents, and my birth parents are S.H.I.E.L.D. agents."

An expression that I couldn't quite name flashed across Natasha's face. "Do you know who?"

"Who my birth parents are?" I shook my head, "No. But not long after I was kidnapped I was brought here by my chemistry teacher who was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and I've been here for the past six weeks."

"That's quite the story Paige," said Steve, "Thank you for telling it to us."

"You're welcome?"

"Paige," Agent Romanoff said, "when were you born?"

_When was I born? That was a weird question to ask. _

"Um...next week's my birthday actually."

"And how old will you be?"

"Eighteen."

"Eighteen," Natasha repeated and it seemed more like she was talking to herself than anyone else.

"You'll be able to vote," Steve said.

I almost laughed. Of course Captain America would see it as me being able to have a say in who ran the country.

"We should probably be going," Steve said apologetically.

"It's fine," I said, "I actually have some business of my own to attend to." I didn't actually have any business to attend to, but I didn't know what else to say.

"It was nice seeing you," Steve said.

"Same," I said as Steve walked away. Natasha followed him and said nothing, glancing back at me one more time before she disappeared around the corner.


	11. Happy birthday to me

_"A friendly desert community where the sun is hot," _

Cecil's melodic voice drifted out of the speakers of my phone, alerting me that Lexi was calling.

_"the moon is beautiful," _

I glanced over at my phone sitting on the practice bench where I had left it. I hadn't expected Lexi to call me, even though it was my birthday.

_"and mysterious lights pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep,"_

Noticing that I was distracted, Maria took the opportunity. I didn't even see her coming. I was on my back with her knee pressed against my chest before I could even utter the words-

_"Welcome to Night Vale."_

"The enemy won't wait for you if you're distracted," Agent Hill said lifting her knee off of me and standing up.

"Sorry," I muttered my apology and scrambled for my phone, picking it up right as the theme song ended. "Lexi?"

"Haaaaappy Birthday!" Lexi's shout brought a smile to my face even though it deafened my ears.

"Thanks," I said as Maria left the training room, leaving me in private.

"So, how does it feel to be eighteen?" Lexi asked.

I sighed, _Oh what I wouldn't have given to be seventeen again_. My parents had thrown a surprise party for my seventeenth birthday. They hadn't even called for my eighteenth.

"I take it that means you don't like being eighteen?" Lexi asked, "At least your mom won't be able to make you vote in every little election like mine does."

"You like voting," I said, my voice slightly accusing. I could practically hear her shrug on the other end of the line.

"How's it going with the spy stuff?"

It's my turn to shrug. "I don't think that I'm cut out to be a spy."

"What do you mean?"

I sit down on the practice bench and lean against the wall. "I'm not very good at it. They train me and I'm getting better, but I don't think I'm good at it."

"Well, it is physical exercise and you've always been more of a couch person."

"Unfair! I played soccer until fifth grade."

"And then you quite."

"I was on track."

"You quite that too." Lexi pointed out.

"Only recently." I muttered.

"You marathoned a season of _Lost_ in a day."

"You were there." Lexi's comment made me wish that I could go back and lay on the couch and marathon some stupid TV show again, with only me, Lexi, and a bag of potato chips. And then for my mom to come home and tell me that I should do something more productive with my day. "How was graduation?"

"Long and pointless," Lexi said, "I had to wait in a line for an hour just so that I could receive a slip of paper that says that I can pay a college lots of money for another slip of paper."

"Don't you have a full ride?"

"That's not the point," Lexi muttered, "You're lucky that you missed it."

Even though I had missed my graduation ceremony I had technically graduated, with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s help.

"Timothy Humburg made a stupid speech about how we were all going places and we'd look back in ten years and be thankful for this moment."

I laughed.

"My mom took me out for burgers afterwards," Lexi's voice had lost the hint of sarcasm and was serious. "I wish you'd been there for that part."

"Next time." I promised her, not even knowing what next time was.

"Sure," I could tell by Lexi's tone that she didn't quite believe me.

"Hey, as soon as I'm done with all this Russian stuff..." My voice faded as I noticed that there was another person in the room. Natasha Romanoff was leaning against the doors of the gym. I didn't know how long she had been there or how much of the conversation she had heard. "I got to go Lexi," I said, "Bye."

"Later," Lexi muttered as I hung up the phone.

"What are you doing here?" It came out harsher than I meant it to.

"There's been some developments on your case." Romanoff said.

"I thought I wasn't allowed to know about that stuff."

"You're not. But I think that you should at least be informed about it."

I glanced at Agent Romanoff. I hadn't taken her for the type of person that gave too much thought as to what other people need. Obviously, I'd been wrong.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked.

Romanoff shrugged. "It's your birthday," she said then walked out the door. I stood there stunned for a second then followed her out of the gym.


	12. I get caught doing something illegal

Agent Romanoff was waiting for me right outside of the training room doors, leaning back against the large glass windows. She stepped away from the windows as I exited the training room and began to walk down the hallway without saying anything. Not knowing what I was doing, I followed her.

I didn't know why Natasha Romanoff, one of the best agents in all of S.H.I.E.L.D. not the mention the Black Widow, would bother to keep me informed about the case. Not to mention remember that it was my birthday.

Maybe it was a training exercise. Maybe they wanted to test me to see if I was good enough to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. I knew that I wasn't. I had told Maria this multiple times. Maybe they were finally going to send me back home.

I was so lost in thought that I almost ran in to Agent Romanoff, who had stopped just in front of the elevators. She was peering around the corner and seemed to be listening to something or someone.

"What are you doing?" I asked her, trying to peer around the corner to see what she was looking at.

Agent Romanoff started to say something but was interrupted by the elevator doors dinging open. Out stepped Captain Steve Rogers in all his red, white, and blueness. He glanced at Agent Romanoff then at me then back at Agent Romanoff, his eyes full of curiosity.

Instead of asking the question that was obviously on his mind, he glanced around the corner that Romanoff had been peering around a second earlier. He raised a questioning eyebrow. "That's clearance level seven."

Romanoff shrugged. "I wanted to keep Paige updated on her case."

"And her case is in there?"

Agent Romanoff nodded. Steve let out a low whistle.

"What?" I asked.

"We're not clearance level seven," Steve said, "Whoever you are, they don't want you or either of us to know."

"Why?"

"That's what we're going to find out," Romanoff said, pulling a card that wasn't hers out of her belt.

* * *

It was a large round room with sliding doors that opened whenever a level seven agent walked in. There were computers scattered around the room with a large screen in the very front. Various images popped up on the screen from time to time. The few agents in the room glanced up at the screen occasionally, but other than that they pretty much ignored it and did nothing. One was even playing chess on his computer.

There was a second level that had been sectioned off with a glass window looking out over the room. Though it had recently seen use, nobody was in it. That was where Agent Romanoff, Steve, and I hid.

Both Agent Romanoff and Steve seemed to know more about what was going on in the room than I did. Every so often one of them would shoot the other one a glance that could only mean something bad.

My eyes roamed the room, searching for answers that had to be hidden there. They found none. I had almost given up looking when a picture flicked up on to the large screen in the front.

It was the picture of a boy. A boy with glasses too large for his face and spiky black hair that, despite his mother's best efforts, would never stay in place. It was a boy who'd dressed up like Harry Potter for Halloween for the past four years. It was my little eleven year old brother- Aiden.

_What was he doing on the screen?_

"I don't know," Steve said.

I glanced at him. _Had I spoken out loud?_ I must have.

"Do you know him?" Steve asked.

"He's my brother," I said.

"Oh," was all that Steve said.

I looked back at the screen but the image had already changed. Instead of the picture of my brother, there was a map with a collection of red dots scattered around.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I have no clue," Agent Romanoff said.

If Natasha Romanoff didn't know what it was, it was probably a huge secret. I fished my phone out of my pocket and snapped a picture of it before it could disappear. I stuffed it back in my pocket just as the slide changed.

"Do you have any idea what any of this me-" I was cut off as the door swung open and omitted a very unhappy Director Nick Fury.

"Oh-"

"Shit."


	13. I spoil a book for Agent Ward

I had been called to the principles office yet again, except this time instead of sending me in to face Fury's wrath I was waiting outside while Agent Romanoff and Steve were being berated. Unfortunately for me, I was not alone. They had assigned me a babysitter.

Agent Ward sat across from me, his chiseled features turned downwards in a scowl. He had been like that for the past fifteen minutes and I was beginning to think that it just came naturally to him. It was very very disturbing. No human being should be able to do that.

"So..." I looked at Agent Ward, "how long until it's my turn to be yelled at?"

I didn't think Agent Ward would respond, but he did. "They will probably be in there for at least an hour."

"An hour?"

"Or longer."

"How does any human being shout like that for an hour?"

Agent Ward didn't say anything, his permanently scowling face making me very uncomfortable.

"You're mad because they're making you babysit aren't you?"

Agent Ward said nothing.

"You should charge them. Five dollars every hour. By the end of this you might have twenty."

Still, Agent Ward said nothing.

"I'm beginning to think that you don't have many friends. You know if you babysat more often you could make friends."

"Will you stop talking?"

"I can't. I talk when I'm nervous."

Agent Ward shook his head.

"Hey! I don't like spending time with you any more than you do with me. The least you can do is try to be hospitable."

"You're annoying."

"So I've been told. Multiple times. Mostly by Miss Wilson. You should hang out with her. Might give the two of you something to talk about."

Agent Ward rolled his eyes.

"See," I pointed out, "this is why you don't have any friends."

"No."

"No what?"

"I don't have any friends because I'm a specialist. We work alone."

"That sucks."

"Actually I rather like my job. I don't have to spend all day with people like you."

"Then how'd you get stuck on babysitting duty?"

"I just came back from a job and I'm taking a break before I go back to Paris."

"You were the only person available."

Agent Ward shrugged.

"Do you know what the picture of my brother was doing in that room?" I asked.

"No, and if I did I wouldn't tell you."

"And just when I was beginning to think that we were friends."

"We're not friends," Agent Ward said through gritted teeth.

"Well not anymore."

"Do you ever stop talking?"

"Only when I sleep."

Agent Ward sighed and pulled a book out of his bag. I glanced at the cover and laughed. He raised a questioning eyebrow. "What's so funny?"

"You're reading Hunger Games."

"And?"

"Rue dies."

Agent Ward shook his head. "I didn't think you were the spoiling type."

"I'm not, but seeing how you're not my friend I made an exception."

Agent Ward flipped open the book and leafed through a few pages then began to read. I glanced at the door to Fury's office then back at Ward.

"Hey," I said, "do you know who my parents are?"

"No, and if I did-"

"You wouldn't tell me. I know."

"Then why'd you ask me?"

I shrugged. "You were the one that told me I was adopted. It was worth a shot."

"Well, I don't know so will you be quiet? I'm trying to read."

I fell silent and listened to the shouting that had begun to leak through the supposedly soundproof door. Fury was mad-I could tell that by his shouting-but he wasn't the only one that was mad. Natasha Romanoff matched Fury in both tone and volume.

"How'd you even meet her?"

I could only assume that they were talking about me. Though why how we met mattered, I didn't know.

"It isn't as if you kept her locked up. I met her while she was roaming the hallways." I couldn't make out what they were saying for a few minutes because their voices had dropped. However Fury must have said something to make Romanoff angry because the next moment her voice was raising.

"Do you think that I'm dumb Nick? Do you think that I'm blind? It doesn't take a mastermind to figure it out."

"Why do you care?"

"Because I'm her mother!"


	14. I take an extended vacation

I felt as if Maria Hill had tossed me to the ground and knocked the wind out of my lungs. It would have been preferable if she had. Of all of the women that I had expected to be my mother Agent Natasha Romanoff was not one of them. She wasn't even on the list-if I'd had a list that is.

I sat there for a moment, sure that I was going to pass out, or hyperventilate, or something of the sort. But I didn't. While my mind was reeling with unanswered questions, my body simply stayed incredibly still. It was as if nothing was different that it had been a minute ago. But it was.

The number of questions that I had before had now doubled, if not tripled. The number one question I had was why had no one told me? Surely it was not that big of a secret. If Natasha Romanoff had had a child the whole agency would have been likely to know. She was one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best.

Is that why she had given me up? A childhood in S.H.I.E.L.D. would have been a strange one, one hat I knew I wouldn't have liked, but it stung a little. Was I not good enough? Was that why I was given up?

Who was my father? I did not know much about Natasha Romanoff but I did know that she wasn't married. If she was I would have heard about it. And she didn't have that many close guy friends-except for Steve, but he was a frozen Capsicle when I was born. That left me with no direct leads.

Shouting was still coming from Fury's office. That was another thing. Why was Natasha Romanoff mad at Director Fury and what did it have to do with me? The shouting kept getting louder and louder, until it got to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I needed to get out.

I glanced over at Agent Ward, who was too busy reading his book to have even heard the shouting that was going on in the other room, or maybe he had heard it and just didn't care, either way he didn't seem to be as affected by it as I was.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom." I announced rather loudly.

Agent Ward looked up from his reading. "And?"

"I just thought that you might want to know where I am going to be and, you know, in case you have to give me permission and stuff." I did not sound at all professional or sure of myself, but Agent Ward didn't seem to notice. He was probably just glad to have a moment of peace without me.

"You can go," Agent Ward said.

I got up from my chair and walked to the end of the hallway. There I glanced back to see if Agent Ward was watching me. He had returned to his book. Good. I took a deep breath then turned right. The restrooms were to the left.

* * *

I in my room at the base, packing my bag, before I realized what I was doing. I stopped my packing and glanced down at my bag then at the door. Agent Ward hadn't followed me. I doubted that he would. It would be hours before anyone looked for me. In all honesty, I couldn't have planned a better time for me to leave.

That was what I was doing. Leaving. Running away in a sense. Though technically I couldn't run away from S.H.I.E.L.D., even if I wanted to. No. S.H.I.E.L.D. would always catch up to me. I just wanted some time off before I would be thrust back in to the confusing mess that my life had become.

As I packed it, I search my bag for any sort of tracker. I only found one. It was stuffed deeply in to one of the many hidden pockets, the ones where I usually kept my pads. I pulled it out and set it on my bed.

SH.I.E.L.D. had taken most of my personal items. My fireworks were gone, along with my laptop and headphones. I still had a few of spare clothes(they had given me some new black ones), a worn out pair of sneakers(they had given me a new pair of shoes too, but they were uncomfortable and had a tracking device in the soles), a bottle of Vanilla Bean Noel lotion, and a blank notebook. I stuffed my few personal items in to my bag, and changed out of the pair of shoes that S.H.I.E.L.D. had given me and in to my sneakers.

Leaving my phone on the bed, I shouldered my bag and walked to my door, stopping before it to pull a picture of me and my family and the one in front of the Washington monument off of it. Then I was out the door.

Not one of the agents that I passed in the hallway asked me where I was going. Not one of them stopped me or even glanced my way. Before I knew it, I was out of the base, exiting through the front doors.

In a public restroom, I switched out of the clothes that S.H.I.E.L.D. had given me and in to a pair of jeans and a _Doctor Who_ t-shirt. I bought a ticket for the bus with some of the spending money I had brought for my Senior trip and never spent. I loaded on to the bus with a couple of other people, not even bothering to look back at the building that I knew housed S.H.I.E.L.D.

S.H.I.E.L.D. would eventually catch up to me, but I didn't care. I was headed home.


	15. I meet a guy named Clint

Lexi always said that we lived in the middle of nowhere. I never really believed her, but then again the only other place I had ever been was Disney World, and never for that long. Staying in a S.H.I.E.L.D. base for about two months changed my perspective on things.

I'd believed my high school to be a decent sized high school, and it was, but it was run down. The football stadium was in better condition that the school itself, which I believe says things about my hometown. The downtown area was made up of a three block area that consisted of one movie theatre, a small grocery store, two diners(one of which served Mexican food), an ice cream parlor, a couple of antique shops, one doctors office(where my mom worked), a feed store, a used bookstore, and a small park. On weekends such as this, there was a farmers market that took up Main Street. Even that was small.

As the summer sun beat down on my head, I made my way through the streets of town, my head down and covered by a baseball cap that I had found in the back of a truck, so that no one would recognize me. I started to jog once I had made it out of the busy part of town.

The house that I had spent the better part of my childhood in was located a quarter of a mile away from the town center. It was a small craftsman house that had been run down when we had first moved in. My parents had been determined to restore this house to its former beauty. It had taken three months, but in the end, it was worth it.

A large porch stretched the length of the house with a porch swing, two rocking chairs, and an icebox on it. The house itself was light blue with white trim and a white door. It looked like a dollhouse. My dad's truck sitting in the driveway kind of ruined the image.

I walked up the steps of my childhood home, millions upon millions of outcomes to this situation running through my mind. Would my parents be mad, or would they just be happy to see me? They'd probably be disappointed. After all, to them it would look like I was throwing away my future. Aieden, at least, would be happy to see me. Though he might be a little disappointed that he'd have to share a room again. Or maybe I could just sleep on the couch. I wouldn't really care that much.

I raised my hand and knocked on the door. I could only imagine what my parents would think. I could just see my dad's face as he opened the door, disappointed buy a little bit relieved and just a tiny bit happy.

The door opened and I froze. My father wasn't standing in the door. My mother wasn't either. Standing in the door of my home was a man of average hight and build. His hair was trimmed shorter than it had been the last time I say him. His face was lit up by a smiling. The same James Bond villain smile that he always wore.

The first thought that went through my mind was, _I have really got to figure out what this guy's name is._ It was closely followed by, _my family, what did he do to my family?_ And a third thought, _run_.

Before either of us could say anything, I turned around and sprinted as fast as I could away from my house. I hadn't seen the signature evil Russian van, so hopefully it was only Nice Coat in the house. I could easily outrun him on foot. I had been on the track and cross country team until too many detentions had made me drop out. Another one of the many things that I had Miss Wilson to thank for.

I ran as quickly as I could, knowing that the Russian man was likely right behind me. I heard an engine roar to life behind me and mentally swore. Of course he would have a car.

I have never been as thankful as I was the moment that I realized that the farmers market was blocking any possible way through Main Street for a car. I wove through different stalls, not caring if anyone say me anymore. A few people shouted at me or told me to watch it, but their complained quickly died as they caught sight of the slick black car not far behind me. As I rounded the corner near the feed store, I began to realize that I could never lose Nice Coat on foot. I would need to hide.

A truck with a bumper sticker that read 'Honk if you love pizza' was parked in front of the feed store. The back door was open and I hopped inside and closed the door just as the Nice Coat's car came around the corner. It zoomed past the truck without so much as a second glance.

I let out a breath that I had been holding in. I could feel my heart pumping against my chest. That had been close. Too close.

I finally took in my surroundings. I was sitting in the back of a truck, right behind the front seat. Nice Coat was likely to come back, so I had to stay hidden. This truck was as good of a hiding place as any.

I had just decided to hide in the truck when the front door opened and somebody started the ignition. The car rolled out of the feed store parking lot with me still in it.

* * *

"What are you doing?" An unfamiliar voice wrenched my out of my sleep. I opened my eyes the see a tall man with blonde hair and a couple of cuts across his face and arms, looking at me, his arms crossed. "What are you doing?" The man asked me again.

"Excuse me?" I asked the man.

He sighed and shook his head. "What are you doing in my car?" I suddenly realized where I was. This man must have been the owner of the truck that I was hiding in.

"Sorry," I muttered. I grabbed my backpack and climbed out of the car, sliding past the man as I did so. We were in the middle of a dirt road. We could've been anywhere. There was no way that I could find my way to a rest stop or a nearby town from here. I turned back to the man. "Um," I muttered, "Where are we?"

The man studied me for a moment. "What were you doing in my truck?" He finally asked, not answering the question that I had asked him.

I sighed. "I was hiding from someone, okay?"

"Who?"

I almost laughed. I could imagine this guy's face if I told him the truth. He would probably drop me off at the nearest lunatic asylum. "A couple of people that I don't like," I said.

"Are you running away?" The man asked.

"What?"

"You have a backpack. People who are hiding from people that they don't like don't carry backpacks with them." This guy was a lot smarter than he appeared.

"I'm not running away," I told the man.

"Okay," he nodded, but I got the idea that he didn't really believe me, "Where are you going then?"

I paused. _Where was I going? _I couldn't go back home. My parents and baby brother had been kidnapped or worse by Nice Coat. I tried not to think about what worse was. I could go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. and be locked away forever so that they could make sure I wasn't a liability. They wouldn't help me search for my family. I wasn't sure that I wanted to go back to S.H.I.E.L.D. They hadn't told me anything. In fact, they had lied to me more often than they had told me the truth.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

The man raised an eyebrow. "You don't know?"

"Yeah," I said, "I don't know."

"And you're not running away?"

"Yeah."

"Then where are you going?"

"I'm going to find my family." I said and I realized that it was true. I was going to find my family. Nobody could stop me.

"Find?" The man looked at me, "Don't you know where they are?"

I shook my head, "Not exactly."

"What do you mean 'not exactly'?"

"It's complicated." I said.

"Most things are," the man said. He looked at his car and then back at me, as if he was debating something. A minute later he said, "How about I give you a ride wherever you need to go."

I eyed the man suspiciously. I had already been in his car for some time and he hadn't called the cops or anything of that sort. If he was a murderer, he probably would've killed me by now. "I thought we'd established I don't know where I'm going." I said.

"The I'll take you as far as my farm. After that you can decide what to do."

The stranger danger part of my mind was going berserk. It was something that they drilled in to us since day one. But I wasn't a little kid anymore. I was legally an adult. Plus, I had been trained by one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s best, even if I sucked. Besides he wasn't a stranger if I knew his name, _right? _

"What's your name?" I asked the man.

"Clint," he said.

"Nice to meet you Clint," I said. I smiled. I knew that my logic was faulty, but we were no longer strangers, now we were acquaintances. "I'm Paige."


	16. I do something stupid

Clint talked the entire drive to his house. He talked about his family and his farm. He talked a lot about his kids. He seemed to be crazy about them. He asked me a couple of questions, most of which I skillfully avoided. I may have been hitching a ride from him, but that didn't mean that I trusted him. He was hiding something from me, I could tell.

The truck pulled up the uneven driveway, and I got a good look at Clint's house. It was a traditional southern farmhouse, much like any other farmhouse. There was a chicken coop to one side and a barn behind it. As we pulled up a little boy and girl raced up to Clint. He hopped out of his truck and lifted the little girl up without so much as a groan, much like my dad had when I was younger. It made me feel more homesick than I already was.

I stepped out of the truck and grabbed my backpack from the backseat. The little girl noticed me as I did so. "Who's that?" she asked.

"Lila, this is Paige," he said, "She's staying with us for a while. Paige, these are my kids, Lila and Cooper."

The little girl smiled at me, "Hi," she said.

I managed a small, "Hi." Clint started to ask how the kids' days had been and I followed them inside.

The inside of the house was cluttered, much like any house with small children living in it. Toys were strewn all over the floor or hastily shoved to the side. Tucked in the corner next to a bookshelf was a play bow and arrow-you know the kind with the suction cups of the end.

"Clint? Is that you?" came a voice from the living room. A brunette woman's head appeared from where I could only assume the kitchen was located. A smile spread across her face when she noticed Clint and she raced up and planted a quick kiss on his lips. "I've missed you," she said.

Clint laughed. "I wasn't gone that long."

She shrugged. "So, I'm not allowed to miss you if you aren't away for a long time?"

"I wouldn't say that," Clint said. He took his eyes off of his wife for a moment and turned towards me. "Paige, this is my wife, Laura. Laura, Paige is going to be staying with us for a while."

Laura studied me for a moment and I was afraid she was going to say something negative when she said, "You mush be starving? When was the last time you had anything to eat?"

I shrugged. "Um..."

Laura hit her husband on the shoulder. "You didn't offer this poor girl anything to eat?"

"What?" Clint asked and I could tell that he was trying to sound offended. Trying and failing. "In my defense," he said, "she did stowaway in the back of my car."

Laura just shook her head. "Let's get you something to eat," she said and I followed her to the kitchen.

* * *

One grilled cheese sandwich and a shower later, I was lying on the bed of Clint and Laura's guest room. Laura had told me, very kindly, to try to get some rest. Whatever issues I was dealing with, she had said, would be better faced with a good amount of sleep. I'm sure what she said was true, but no matter how much I tossed and turned I couldn't get any sleep. The thoughts that I had been trying to avoid all day kept sneaking back up on me.

My dad, mom, and even my little brother were kidnapped or killed, and I couldn't do anything about it. S.H.I.E.L.D. had kept this information from me for a reason, and I didn't like it. Not one bit. Maybe they had been right to keep it from me, after how I'd reacted when I found out Natasha was my mother, I would have kept it away from me.

I stared up at the ceiling. What I wouldn't give to go back to before the DC trip, to convince myself that I didn't have to go, Lexi would have fun on her own. I sat up. Lexi! She could access information on my family.

I jumped off the bed and pulled my laptop out of my backpack. After checking it for bugs, I powered it one. I booted up Skype and hit Lexi's contact. After a few rings, Lexi's face appeared on the screen. Curly black hair, brown eyes, and light brown skin, with a botton-y nose that she liked to complain about, I hadn't realized how much I missed that face.

"Paige?" she asked, and for the first time in a long time I smiled a real smile. "Why are you calling me? How are you calling me?"

"That's not important," I said.

"Are you sure, 'cause I thought that you said that S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't let you call-"

"I'm not with S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore."

"You're not?" she sounded startled, "is everything okay?"

"Yes...No...It's complicated."

"Story of my life," Lexi said with a smile. I couldn't help but grin. I could always count on Lexi for the right sarcastic comment. After a minute, she sobered up, "why are you calling me? If you're running away from S.H.I.E.L.D. then..."

"I know," I said, "but for now they won't find me. I'm in the middle of nowhere with horrible internet access."

"Wait, are you back home?"

"I was."

"But you're not any more?"

"No, well you see..." I told Lexi the entire story, omitting a few small details like Natasha Romanoff being my mother. She would freak if she knew that, at least the old Lexi would have. I wasn't so sure about the new Lexi though. As I drew my story to a close Lexi nodded.

"So you want me to look for information of your family?"

"Could you do that?"

Lexi smiled. "Consider it done. I'll call you again if I find anything."

"Okay."

"And, Paige," she said, "stay safe."

"I will." I said and closed my laptop as the screen went blank. At least, I would try to, my odds didn't appear to be the best at the moment.


	17. Things go boom

"What are these?" Lila asked as she pulled a couple fireworks out of my backpack. I took he explosive devices away from the little girl and put it back in the pocket of my bag.

"Those are fireworks," I said.

The little girl shook her head. "That's not what fireworks look like. Fireworks are big and pretty and go boom."

"Yes," I said, "but those are fireworks before they're big or pretty or go boom."

Lila seemed to accept that answer. "Why do you have them in your bag?" she asked.

"I made them."

"You made them?" she asked in awe.

"Yes."

"Can we make them go boom?"

"Um," I glanced over at Laura, who was busy trying to pick up the toys scattered all over the floor. "I'm not sure your mom would appreciate it if we made them go boom."

"No, she would not," Laura said, dumping the toys in a plastic container. "But if you are with Daddy, then maybe you can set them off outside."

"Now?" Lila asked.

"Go ask your father." That was all the little girl needed to hear. Within seconds, she was off the kitchen chair and running to go find Clint.

I watched as she clumsily ran away, it had been four days since I contacted Lexi, she still hadn't called me back yet. The good thing was, neither had S.H.I.E.L.D. They were still in the dark as to where I was. In the four days that I had been with Laura and Clint, they had been nicer than I expected, though I didn't know what I had expected. Both of them were super friendly. Lila had instantly warmed up to me, but Cooper was a little more reluctant. He was still polite, though.

Laura sat down across from me in the seat that Lila had been occupying. "You make fireworks?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said, "my grandfather used to make them for a living, I just picked it up along the way. My parents didn't-don't-really approve of it."

"That's the first thing you've said about your parents," Laura said. I just nodded. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"There's nothing to talk about."

"Are you sure? Sometimes it helps to tell someone."

"Trust me," I said, "it wouldn't help anyone." It would harm them though, and that was one thing I really didn't want to happen to Laura, Clint, and their kids.

Laura looked as if she wanted to say more, but she didn't press the issue. She just nodded, as if she understood what I was going through. "If you need anyone to talk to, I'll be here. I know what it's like to feel like no one will understand you're predicament."

"Thanks," I said as my laptop beeped in my backpack. I apologized to Laura and opened it up to see Lexi's picture. I excused myself from the room and answered the call. Lexi's face popped up on the screen. By her expression, she wasn't happy to see me.

"Okay, I didn't say this a couple of days ago, but I should have; _what the hell where you doing Skypeing me?_ Do you realize that S.H.I.E.L.D. is out there looking for you? It took me almost a full day to get them off of your trail and set up a secure line, and I had to ask Skye for help. She says to tell you that you're an idiot."

"Sorry," I muttered. It had been idiotic of me to Skype Lexi, but I hadn't been thinking of anything besides my family at the time. "Who's Skye?"

"One of the best Rising Tide hackers. She's like mega talented. Like Oracle level talented."

"And you told her about me?" It kind of pissed me off that Lexi had told her new hacktivist friends about me.

"Don't worry," she said nonchalantly, "Skye totally hates S.H.I.E.L.D.'s guts, so she was more than happy to help. And she won't tell anyone anything, I made her swear on her van."

I raised an eyebrow, but I let it slide. Lexi was a little strange at times, but that was probably one of the best things about her. "Got any news on my family?"

Lexi nodded. "First of all, I know that they're alive. I don't exactly know where they are, but I know that they're alive."

"How do you know that?"

"Because they sent S.H.I.E.L.D. a ransom message. Tried to scare them out of their pants. Although, if I may say so myself, it was a pretty scary message. This Russian group, bad news. Their, like, one of the leading crime organizations in the world. They're horrible." The look on my face must have been pretty bad because Lexi quickly added, "They won't kill them Paige. They just want you, not your family."

"I know that," I muttered. I did know that, it was just getting the idea through my thick skull was a hard thing to do.

"They'll be fine," Lexi said, "We'll save them. You'll see."

"I hope so," I said so quietly that even I couldn't hear myself say it. A knock came at my door and I turned around to see Lila standing in the doorway.

"Paige," she said, "Daddy said that we can make the fireworks go boom after dinner." She caught sight of Lexi on the screen. "Who's that?"

"Just a friend," I said, "Tell your mom that I'll be down there to help with dinner in a minute."

"Okay," Lila nodded and skipped out the door.

As she closed it behind her, Lexi raised an eyebrow. "Who was that?"

"One of the kids of the family that I'm staying with."

"You're staying with someone?"

"Yeah."

"Do you know them?"

"Kind of."

"Do they know about your situation?"

"They think that I'm a runaway or something, but they have a general idea."

Lexi nodded. "Just make sure that the Russians or S.H.I.E.L.D. don't find out about them."

"They won't."

"Just make sure and stay safe," Lexi said before signing off.

"You too," I replied.

I sat there for a moment, staring at the blank computer screen in front of me, trying to comprehend what Lexi had just told me. My family was still alive. That was good news. The bad news was that the Russians had them. I had to think of a way to free them while fighting a dangerous group of terrorists. I didn't know if I could do it. I didn't think that I could do it. _What eighteen year old girl could?_

* * *

"Oooh," Lila breathed as one of the Spocks took off and exploded into the shape of a space ship. "They're sooooo pretty."

"Thanks," I said and pulled an Ironman out of my bag. I passed it to Clint who walked out a little ways and lit it before running back to join us. We all watched as it shot into the sky, circled around a few times, then stopped to hover in the middle before exploding in to a million tiny stars.

"You certainly are good at this," Clint said as the stars rained down.

"Thanks," I said.

"Can you do another?" Lila asked, bouncing up and down on her toes.

"Tomorrow, young lady," Laura said, "It's already past your bed time."

"Pleeeeeaaase," Lila dragged out.

"Your mother's right," Clint said, "it's already past your bed time." Lila pouted, but allowed her parents to carry her back to the house to put her in bed.

I looked at the sky, you could see the stars here, even through the smoke from the fireworks. My mother used to take us out to watch the stars. During the middle of the summer, she'd bring our tent out in to the back yard and watch the stars through the mesh roof. We'd make s'mores and sing campfire songs. It was the best. I rested my head on my knees and gazed up at the star filled sky. We would probably be doing it right now if I hadn't gone on the DC trip.

I had to find my family. I swore to myself that as soon as Lexi called me with their location, I'd be on the next bus to wherever they were. I would save them. Somehow, I would save them, and everything would be okay.

I paused, everything would not be okay. No matter how many times I told myself that everything was going to be fine, it wasn't. My family had been kidnapped, all because of me. Who knew if they would ever forgive me? But they had to forgive me, right? They had to. That's what families do, they forgive each other no matter what.

But a little voice in the back of my head kept reminding me that I wasn't their family. I was adopted. My real mother was a secret agent, and she didn't even want me. I didn't know who my real father was. I didn't know if I ever would know. S.H.I.E.L.D. was too good at keeping secrets.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around to see Clint standing there. "You should probably go to bed too," he said with a soft smile.

I nodded and followed him back inside. I climbed the stairs to the guest room and quietly lay down on the bed. I had just began to drift off to sleep when my laptop beeped. I crawled out of bed and answered the call.

"Sorry, I know it's late," Lexi apologized, "but I thought that you'd want to know that I found out where your family is."

* * *

I made the bed as quietly as I could, laced up my worn down sneakers, and finished packing up my bag with everything I had come with. I would not take anything of Clint and Laura's, they had already been so kind to me. I really didn't want to repay them by leaving in the middle of the night, but I didn't think that I had much of a choice. The last bus to DC left at two, if I hurried, I could make it in time.

I crept down the stairs, hoping that they wouldn't creak. Clint and Laura were in bed, but I wasn't sure if they were asleep. Even if they were, I didn't want to wake them up.

I made it past the stairs and the living room without a problem. Growing up, I had always thought that it was stupid that country homes didn't have alarm systems, but now I was thankful for it. I reached for the door, opened it, and stopped right in my tracks.

Standing on the front steps of the porch, looking as surprised to see me as I was to see her, was Natasha Romanoff. My birth mother.


	18. And the father is

Two things went through my mind at the same time. The first was,_ Shit it's Natasha Romanoff._ The second was, _What is Natasha Romanoff doing at a farm in the middle of nowhere? _

We stood there for a second just staring at each other. She was the first one to snap out of whatever trance we were in.

"What are you doing here?" she asked and it surprised me that she didn't sound angry. No, she sounded more confused and a little bit disappointed.

"Um," I paused, unsure of what to say, "I'm hiding from S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

That apparently wasn't the answer that Romanoff had been expecting. She stared at me in a startled silence for a moment, then let herself inside. _She let herself inside_! As if it were her home and she did it on an everyday basis!

"W-what are you doing?"

She ignore me, instead marching in the direction of Clint and Laura's room and yelling, "Clinton Francis Barton!"

I froze as she shouted that name. Clint Barton? As in _Hawkeye_? I had been staying with one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top agents the entire time that I was hiding from them? No. I shook my head. That couldn't be right. It couldn't be. Clint was different from Clint Barton. Hawkeye didn't have a family, I had read his file.

Clint emerged from his room, rubbing the back of his neck. "Nat, stop yelling," he muttered, "you woke Laura up."

"Sorry," Romanoff apologized, but it seemed as if she wasn't apologizing at the same time. The way she talked to him seemed so casual, and he called her Nat. Any doubts I had had about Clint being Hawkeye suddenly were gone. The man in front of me, the man who had helped me and laughed as he watched my fireworks fly through the sky, was an Avenger. "Did you know that you're harboring a fugitive?" She asked.

Clint's eyes flicked from me to Natasha then back to me. "I figured it was something like that, though I didn't think that you were caught up with S.H.I.E.L.D., Paige."

I wanted to say something intelligent, but somehow the only thing that I could

* * *

manage was, "You're Hawkeye."

Clint just smiled. "So, what are you here for, Nat?"

"I came to check up on you and the kids. I got delayed, so I was a little late. I didn't expect to find Paige sneaking out of your front door at eleven forty-five."

"You were sneaking out?" Clint asked and all that I could do was stare at the floor, as if I was some kid who's parents had caught sneaking out of the house to go to a party. "Why?"

"I found some information on my family. I had to go," I said quietly, but they both seemed to hear me just fine.

"Your family? So you're not a runaway?"

"I'm a runaway from S.H.I.E.L.D." I said.

Clint's looked at Agent Romanoff. "Does Fury know she's here?"

"No. Why?"

"Because I want to hear the whole story."

* * *

Five minutes later, we were seated around the kitchen table, a cup of coffee in front of each of us. Clint studied me intensely for a moment them glanced at Natasha. "I'm ready," he said.

I shrugged a little. "What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with how a nice girl like you got mixed up with S.H.I.E.L.D."

My eyes flicked briefly to Natasha. "My teacher was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent."

"Why?"

"Because I'm actually adopted and my parents are supposedly high ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agents." I tried not to look at Romanoff.

"Do you know who they are?"

"No." I hoped it didn't sound like I was lying, well, telling a half truth.

"So, why'd you run away from S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Because I found out that my birth mother is actually the woman sitting right next to me.

"I was homesick," I said. "And when I got home, my family had been kidnapped by these Russian gangsters."

Agent Romanoff sat a little taller in her chair. It would seem that this piece of information was new to her.

"So when you were running from people that you don't like, you were actually running away from-"

"The people who kidnapped my family."

"Did you recognize any of the people?" Romanoff spoke for the first time in several minutes. I described Nice Coat and his goons to her. I couldn't read her expression or tell what she was thinking, which was incredibly annoying.

"Do you know them?"

"Unfortunately," Natasha said. "They're bad news, Paige."

"So you understand why I have to save them?"

"How were you planning on doing that?" Clint asked.

I looked down at my hands. I didn't have a plan. The plan was to figure out a plan once I got there.

"You don't have one?" Clint asked.

"Not really."

"So how were you planning on getting them to safety without dying?"

"I'd have thought of something." Something that involved making things explode. It was, perhaps, one of my only talents.

Clint nodded and he and Natasha shared a look. After a brief moment, Clint spoke up, "We're going to help you find your family, Paige."

* * *

The car zoomed down the highway, passing a few other cars on our way to the capital. After Clint and Natasha had decided that they were going to help me find my family, we had loaded in to his truck and left, with only a quick note to Laura left on the kitchen table. I supposed that she was used to her husband leaving in the middle of the night, him being an Avenger and all.

My head was propped against the window of the car as I tried to get some shuteye. As both of the people in the front seat had told me, it was a long drive to DC, worrying wouldn't help me. But I couldn't stop myself from worrying. My brain kept coming up with images of the horrible fates that my family could have suffered. Fates worse than death.

"She's asleep," I heard Clint say from the front seat, "Now, would you mind telling me who exactly she is?"

For a second, Natasha didn't say anything. When she finally did speak, there were a million different emotions in her voice at the same time. "She's my daughter," Natasha said.

"Your daughter? I thought you couldn't have kids?"

"I can't. Not now anyways. But there was a time when I could."

"Who's the father?" It was silent for a heartbeat, neither of them speaking. "Me?" Clint asked, "I'm her father?"

If I hadn't been eavesdropping while pretending to be asleep, I probably would have gasped or screamed or something like that. Clint Barton was my birth father? I had been staying with him and his family for the past week, how hadn't I noticed it? Did Laura know? She must have had some idea, she wasn't a clueless as Clint.

"Yes," Natasha said quietly.

"Does she know?"

"I think she knows about me. She keeps giving me strange looks. She doesn't know about you though."

_Now, I do._

"Are you ever going to tell her?"

"No," Natasha said, "She should have a normal life. She deserves that at least. S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't help her, and neither would we. What she needs is to have her family back."

"What about you?"

"I'll check up on her from time to time. Make sure that everything's alright."

"Is that really what you want?"

"It doesn't matter what I want. It matters what she needs."

Another pause and then, "How come you never told me that you were pregnant."

"I didn't know at first, and by the time I found out you were getting serious with Laura. I didn't want to ruin it. It's not as if it mattered anyways. S.H.I.E.L.D. took her from me as soon as they found out. Said that she'd died in the womb, that she was barely even alive to begin with."

Something passed between the two of them, something that I couldn't hear. Then Clint said, "I'm sorry."

"So am I," Natasha said, "So am I."


	19. Plans are made

We stopped at a motel just outside of DC. We rented a room under the name of Justin Lewis, his wife Teri, and their daughter, Kim. The man at the check-in desk looked us over once, before deciding that we were telling the truth, and handing us the key to the room.

It was your standard motel room with two beds, a small bathroom, a dresser, a tiny closet, and a mini fridge. I dropped my backpack down on the first bed and sat down before taking off my sneakers. I had actually managed to get some shuteye in the car, so I wasn't that tired. Clint, on the other hand, was exhausted.

He and Natasha had rotated driving every couple of hours, but I didn't know if Clint had managed to fall asleep the entire trip. The man seemed to run on coffee. Every time we stopped to run the restroom or fill up the tank, Clint got a large regular coffee. One of the gas stations only had decaf, and Clint nearly died. That man had a serious coffee addiction.

Clint dropped his stuff on the other bed and collapsed with out so much as taking off his shoes. Within minutes, he was asleep. It was almost comical. Natasha sat down next to me and we watched Clint for a moment.

"You should probably get some rest," she said after a minute.

"I don't need to," I said, "I got more rest than either of you did."

Another moment of silence and then, "Paige, how much do you know about who you are?"

I stared at her. Who was I? Wasn't that the question of the year? I studied Natasha with her red hair and blue eyes, and, suddenly, I knew exactly who I was.

"My name is Lucille Paige Martin," I said, "I go by Paige because that's what my grandfather called me and, aside from Mr. Rogers, he was my childhood hero. He still is. I was born June 6, 1994, at least that's what my birth certificate says. I'm pretty sure that that's a lie. I have a little brother name Aiden. He is eleven. He is overly obsessed with Harry Potter and steals blankets from my bed to put on his. My parent are Stephen and Joann Martin. My mother is a doctor. My father works part time at the plant, like everyone else in the small town where I grew up."

I sucked in a breath, there was no turning back now. I needed to finish what I started.

"My best friend is Lexi Johnson. She's weird and a little strange, but I know that she's always going to have my back no matter what. She always wears a smile, despite all the horrible things that have happened in her life. She's one of the best people on the planet. In high school I got her in to so much trouble that she never got recognized for anything, even though she was an all A student."

Natasha nodded, seeming to accept this, so I plowed on, "My birth mother is Natasha Romanoff, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. also known as the Black Widow. I don't know much about her, but I would like to know more."

Natasha looked a little taken aback by what I had said, as if no one had ever told her that they wanted to get to know her. "Um," I muttered after she was quiet for a long while, "Can you say something?"

Natasha shook her head several times. "When did you figure it out?" she finally asked.

"When you were yelling at Fury. I kind of just heard things."

"And that's why you ran away?"

"Well, it was a lot to swallow. It's not every day you hear your birth mother yelling at the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., you know."

Natasha let out a small laugh. "No. I suppose it's not an everyday occurrence."

"It's really not."

More awkward silence and then, "Paige, thank you for saying that-"

"No big deal."

"It is to me." And with that, Natasha Romanoff lay down on the bed and fell asleep. She still hadn't answered any of my questions, but it was a start. At least now she knew that I knew that I was her daughter.

* * *

"Is everything clear?" Clint asked between bites of fried rice.

"Yeah," I said, "You guys know I'm not a kid, right? I can carry my own weight."

"First of all, you are still a kid," Clint said, "And second, we know that you can carry your weight. This is just the plan that equally distributes everyone's weight."

"Then why are you so against giving me a gun?"

"You're a kid."

"That's not a good enough answer."

"Paige," Clint let out an exasperated sigh, "I don't want you getting hurt."

It was a sweet notion, really it was, but this was my family we were saving. I wouldn't be left out of the rescue mission.

"Look," I tried to reason with him, "You guys need a distraction. Something to put the bad guys off of our trail. How about I be that distraction?"

"And what do you have in mind?"

"I blow something up."

"Absolutely not!" they said in unison. Gosh, they hadn't even raised me, but they were acting as if they were the ones who set curfew.

"Why not? You guys do it all of the time."

"We do not. We save people and things occasionally get destroyed in the process. Occasionally."

"So, just count this as one of those occasions."

"That's different. We're saving the world then. This time we're just saving a few people."

"Look, we need something big. News worthy big. I'm just saying that destroying one of the most recognizable buildings in DC would be a way to get that coverage."

"Absolutely not."

"But-"

"No."

"Are you sure, because-"

"Lucille Paige Martin, this is not up for debate."

Even my own parents weren't this hard. They wore down faster. Natasha and Clint were resolved in this matter.

"Can I still be on distraction duty? I won't blow up anything to important."

"Fine."

* * *

I had decided, after a good half hour spent staring at the ceiling, that it looked like popcorn. Occasionally a piece fell down and landed in my eye, making me want to scream out in pain. I decided that it was just an added bonus of the popcorn ceilings. In truth, I didn't care about the ceiling, I was just trying to keep my mind off of other things.

Tomorrow was the day that everything would happen. After a good day of arguing, we had finally come up with a good, mostly foolproof plan. I was only a minor part in it, but that was to be expected with two secret agents on my team.

I had eventually argued my way in to a gun, telling them that there was no way that they could always watch my back. I didn't tell them that I was terrified of the gun and barely knew how to use it. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that. My bag was packed full of explosives of every kind.

I stared at the ceiling, silently hoping that everything would turn out okay tomorrow, that nothing would go wrong. But I knew I was fooling myself. As my dad used to say every time we watched a war movie, something always goes wrong.


	20. More things go boom

It was raining. I watched as the rain pounded against the pavement outside, the idea of having to actually go out in that rain becoming less and less appealing the more I watched. I took a sip of my coffee and looked at the clock. A quarter till ten.

The Starbucks I was in was barely populated. A few odd people here and there going about their lives completely unaware of what I was about to do. I shook my head and wondered how many times I had been a random person just going about my business. Everything seemed to matter so much now. Every little move I made had drastic consequences.

I pulled my laptop out of my bag and glanced at the clock. Ten minutes till ten. The timer was quietly ticking, and all that I could do was watch.

I could understand why Natasha and Clint didn't want me there for the actual fighting. I was more of a liability than anything else. I wasn't good at fighting. I wasn't skilled at shooting. The only thing that I was relatively good at was destroying things. So that was what I was doing.

I had a gun stuffed in the back of my pants, and my backpack was packed with explosives. S.H.I.E.L.D. had a lot of nifty toys, I'd give them that. They didn't seem to be short on cool explosives.

I looked out the window. I could see the Washington Monument from where I was sitting. It was just like it had been the last time I had seen it, except this time it was closed and soaked from the rain.

I looked at the time. Five minutes till ten. I pulled the piece of tech that Natasha had given me out of my bag and attached it on to my laptop. I watched as it turned red. S.H.I.E.L.D. had just been alerted to my position. Natasha had said that it would take them at least seven minutes to arrive at the Starbucks. It would take the Russians five.

I sat back and watched the clock tick down.

Three minutes.

I crossed my fingers and hoped that Natasha and Clint were using the distraction to their advantage.

Two minutes.

I finished off my coffee and tossed it in the trash.

One and a half minutes.

A black car pulled in to parking lot.

One minute.

A group of men stepped out of the car. They were all wearing the same black suits and black ties. If I hadn't known better, I'd have said that they were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but I did know better. Their leader was a man that I had sworn I would kill the next time I saw him. I was going to make good on my promise and bring him to justice.

Thirty seconds.

The Russians entered the Starbucks. I could see their guns bulging underneath their coats and jackets.

Twenty five seconds.

Nice Coat spotted me and said something in Russian.

Fifteen seconds.

I grabbed my backpack, not bothering to zip it up.

Five seconds.

The group of Russians started to make their way to my table.

Four seconds.

I moved towards the back exit.

Three seconds.

I realized that Nice Coat and his friends weren't trying to make a show. To bad for them, a show was exactly what they were going to get.

Two seconds.

I pulled my hoodie up to protect myself from the rain.

One second.

I crossed my already crossed fingers and prayed that I would live through this.

_BOOM! _

The Washington monument went up in a pile of smoke. I didn't even watch; I ran like a bat out of hell.

The night before, Natasha had drilled three things to me; run, distract, don't die. Following her first rule, I ran as far away from the Starbucks as quickly as I could. I glanced behind me to see the Russians finally emerge from the building. Before any of them could catch sight of me, I ducked in to a McDonalds and pulled out the phone that Clint had given me. I had done my part, hopefully Clint and Natasha were doing theirs, now it was time for S.H.I.E.L.D. to do theirs.

I ran towards the lady's room, scrolling through the address book as I did so. When I found the number that I wanted, I pressed call and waited for the person on the other side to pick up.

"Barton?" Nick Fury picked up the phone.

"No. It's Paige," I said.

"Paige? What are you doing with Barton's phone?"

"It's actually a really funny story. But right now I have a group of crazy Russian terrorists chasing after me, so if you could send S.H.I.E.L.D. my way, I would appreciate it."

"They're already on route to the Starbucks that you're at."

"Well, I might have changed locations."

"Where are you? I'll send them your way."

I winced as someone entered the bathroom. I heard the clomp of shoes that were most defiantly not feminine. "Trace this call," I whispered as the sound got closer, "I've got to go."

I closed the phone and counted as the footsteps slowly got closer. I pulled the pistol out of the back of my jeans. I heard the footsteps stop in front of the stall that I was in. I took a deep breath and ran out of the stall, the door hitting Nice Coat in the head, catching him off guard.

He muttered something in Russian, probably a curse word, and chased after me. I darted out the door and out of the emergency exit. I ran down the alley, hoping that I would lose the Russian on my tail.

I flew past buildings and dumpsters. I took a right, and then a left, and then another right. I stopped abruptly as I almost collided with the brick wall in front of me. I glanced to my left and right, only to find buildings connected to the wall. I turned around to see Nice Coat advancing towards me. He had slowed down to a walk and that trademark smile was on his face.

_Shit_.

I raised my gun. I would shoot him. I would. I didn't want to, but I would.

"You are a lot more trouble than you're worth," he said, taking a gun out of his coat. A shot rang out and I yelped in pain. I looked down at my leg to find it bleeding. He had shot my leg, but it was only skin deep. I could live through this. I could make it, if I could keep him distracted and not focus on the pain.

"I will shoot you," I said rather un-heroically as I crumpled to the ground.

"Why?" Nice Coat asked, "What do you have to gain? If you come back with me, then I will let your family go. If you do not, I will kill them."

"Why?"

Nice Coat shrugged. "If it was up to me, I would have killed them long ago. I would have killed you."

"But you didn't," I said through gritted teeth. That's good. Keep him talking until S.H.I.E.L.D. arrives. Keep home busy Paige.

"I'm not the one in charge," Nice Coat seemed annoyed that he wasn't the one in charge.

"Who is then?"

Nice Coat laughed. It wasn't a nice laugh. "I would not tell a little girl like you."

"If I'm just a little girl, then why do you keep chasing after me?"

"You're an important pawn." I tried not to wince as he kept approaching me. If he got any closer, I'd be a goner.

"Never been a big fan of chess."

"Like it or not," Nice Coat said, "you are part of the game. More than you realize."

"You know," I said, sticking my hand in to my jeans and pulling out a firework, one that I had specially designed using S.H.I.E.L.D. tech, "I think I figured out why you're not the one in charge."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah," I said, pulling the cap off of the firework, "you like the sound of your voice too much." I threw the firework in the air and it exploded. Hopefully, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents noticed it.

Nice Coat watched the firework fly up and explode in to a million tiny stars. He shook his head and leaned over. "What good will that do?"

"Ever heard of a flare buddy?" I asked, lifting my gun off of the pavement beside me, "That's my flare." I swung it at his head, and Nice Coat crumpled to the ground beside me, falling flat on his face in a puddle.

I let out a sigh and leaned back against the wall behind me. The plan had gone almost exactly as planned, with the exception of my now bleeding leg. Hopefully it went just as well for Clint and Natasha. I turned as I heard the sound of footsteps approaching.

"What happened?" Agent Ward asked, stopping a few feet in front of me.

It may have been the fact that I was losing a lot of blood, or it may have been the fact that I had just knocked out a Russian terrorist who had wanted to kill my family, or it may have been the fact that Agent Ward was standing there soaking wet with an expression of both irritation and awe, but I couldn't help it; I smiled.


	21. Several months later

The Coffee Stop looked like any other independent coffee shop that you'd find on a college campus. It was its own little building that probably had been originally built in the seventies, but had been updated several times since then. I stood across the street from it, watching as people came and went, feeling every part of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that I practically was.

After Agent Ward and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. had shown up, they'd taken me to the infirmary and stitched up the bullet wound. Agents Barton and Romanoff had successfully extracted the Martins, saving their lives. They hadn't spoken to me since. I didn't think that they were allowed to. I had received a phone call from Laura though. She had said that if there was anything that I wanted to talk about, then I could talk about it with her.

I appreciated the call, but I didn't feel like I could talk about it with anyone...well, almost anyone. I swallowed my nerves and crossed the street, entering The Coffee Stop.

An Asian girl wearing a black dress stood behind the cash register. She smiled. "What can I get you?" she asked.

"A regular black coffee," I said.

"For?"

"Paige," I said, "Paige Martin."

"Alright, that's one regular black coffee for Paige Martin?" she asked. When I nodded, she said, "That'll be three fifty." I handed over the money and went to sit at one of the many tables.

Glancing around, I studied the students at the other tables. Some of them were studying, a few of them were on their laptops, and the rest of them were socializing. It was a scene that was familiar to me, though at SciTech things were done a bit differently.

Fury had been to see me after my family had been rescued. He had told me that they had erased all memory of the past few months from my family's mind, and given me several options. The first was to never talk to my family again and become a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, the second was for S.H.I.E.L.D. to erase my memory and to go live a normal life, the last was to go to one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s academies and to lie to my parents about it. I had chosen the last option and gone to the SciTech academy. My parents had been thrilled when they found out that I, the ever troublesome Lucille Paige Martin, had been offered a full ride to a prestigious college.

I hadn't liked him, but Nice Coat had been right about one thing. I was a very important pawn in somebody else's game of chess. I didn't know who's, but I would find out.

"Paige Martin," a voice cut through my thoughts. I walked up to the counter and smiled.

"Hey," I muttered.

Lexi raised an eyebrow. "I haven't seen you in months and all you can manage is 'hey'?"

I shrugged. "I guess."

Lexi rolled her eyes. "Hey, Ella," she said, turning to the girl behind the counter, "I'm going on break. I'll be back in ten."

"Sure," Ella said.

Lexi handed me my coffee and came out from behind the counter. "So, what are you doing here?"

I sat down at a table. "How's college?"

"Easy," Lexi said. "How's everything with you?"

I looked down at my coffee. "My family doesn't know anything."

"That's a good thing, right?"

"I guess. But now I'm lying to them."

"About?"

"I'm going to one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. academies. They think that I'm just going to college."

Lexi nodded. "And what about the whole kidnapping thing?"

"S.H.I.E.L.D. erased their memories."

"They can do that?"

"Yeah," I said, "So you're the only non S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who knows anything about me."

"Wow," Lexi muttered.

"Yeah, and there's something else that you should know."

"What?"

I took a deep breath. "The real reason that those Russians were after me, that S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to keep an eye on me, is because my birth parents are Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton."

"No. Way." Lexi said, and suddenly she was Lexi the superhero fangirl that I had met in ninth grade.

"Yeah."

"Did you get their autographs?"

"No."

"But you met them, right?"

"Yeah."

Lexi grinned. "If I still had my superhero blog, I would totally blog about this."

I shook my head. "You can't tell anyone."

"Relax," Lexi said, "I'm great at keeping secrets."

"You have to promise that you won't say a word."

"I promise, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye, stew or fry, all the good stuff."

I smiled. "You have no idea how nice it is to be able to tell someone about this."

"You're welcome," Lexi said. She took a sip of the coffee sitting in front of me. "Eww. Since when do you take your coffee black?"

I shrugged. "It's a new thing." A family thing actually. "So, what's new with you?"

"Nothing really," Lexi said, "My dad's out."

* * *

My phone vibrated on the table where it was charging. I glanced at the caller ID. "Laura?" I asked, picking it up.

"Hey Paige," Laura said.

"You do realize that it's eleven at night, right?"

"I figured that you would be up."

I smiled. She wasn't wrong about that. She almost never was. "What are you calling about?"

"Clint just got a call from S.H.I.E.L.D.," she said, "I wasn't supposed to be listening, but I was anyways. Paige, Nick Fury's dead."

"What?" I asked, not sure that I heard her right.

"Nick Fury's dead. He was shot in Steve Roger's apartment."

"What? How?" This wasn't right. The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't just be dead. It didn't work that way.

"I don't know, Paige. I just thought that you might want to know."

"Yeah. Thanks for telling me."

"No problem," Laura said, "And if you ever need anything, feel free to stop by or to call me."

"I will," I promised before hanging up. I sat back in my chair. Nick Fury was dead. That didn't sound right. How could the head of one of the world's top agencies just be dead? Who had killed him? Was it Nice Coat's friends?

My thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. "Paige, are you in there?" The RA of the dorm, Kevin, asked.

"Yeah," I replied.

"Can I come in?"

I stood up and went to open the door, checking through the peephole to make sure that it was actually Kevin at my door. Kevin was standing at my door, along with six or seven other people. I locked the door.

"What do you need?" I asked.

"I just want to discuss some things with you," Kevin said, and that's what I noticed that several of the agents with him had guns either in their hands or stuffed in the pockets of their jeans.

"Okay," I said, walking back to my desk and stuffing a gun as well as my phone in to my pants, "just give me a sec. I have to put on clothes." I laced up my sneakers and opened my window. I jumped out. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, I started running.


	22. Part 2: Lexi

I don't know how to talk about this.

Paige says that I should just tell you the truth, keep no secrets from you, so on and so forth, yada, yada, yada, etc. I don't think that's how it works. See, I have secrets, just like how you have secrets, but your secrets probably aren't as big as mine. Mine are huge. Ginormous. Mega gigantor. So big that they'd need a crane to lift them even a foot off of the ground.

I think you understand what I'm saying.

You know, I had plans. A list, actually, of Things I Want to Do Over the Summer. That to do list did not include rescuing my best friend from impending doom. It most definitely did not include talking to anyone in my screwed up family. I guess this is what I get for wanting to be a superhero.

See, ever since I was, like, seven, I've wanted to be a superhero. I was the kid who totally disregard lab safety in order to get superpowers. When I was ten, I convinced my entire class that I could fly. That didn't turn out so well. Two broken arms and a broken leg later and it was decided, I was completely and utterly normal.

So, I just became Lexi Johnson, the weird girl who liked superheroes. Then we went on the trip to DC. Things got a little crazy after that. My best friend, Paige, found out some pretty whacky stuff about herself(you should probably go check out her story if you haven't read it. Or don't. It's not like I'm the one who won't know what's going on). I joined a group of hacktivists called The Rising Tide_._ It's pretty awesome, if I may say so myself.

After that whole fiasco, I went to college, got a part time job, and had a pretty normal college life experience. Normal being a relative term, at least, I thought it was. Little did I know that one phone call and my actually very normal life would change _forever_. And _ever_. And _ever_.

You get the point.

* * *

It was two AM, the morning before my calculus final, when my phone rang.

_"He's a semi-aquatic egg-laying mammal of act-ion,"_

I rolled over on my bed and glanced at my roommate, Kendra, to see if my phone had woken her up. It hadn't. She was crashed out, surrounded by a pile of Red Bull cans. She wouldn't be waking up for a while.

_"He's a furry little flatfoot who'll never flinch from a fra-ee-ay-ee-ay,"_

I picked up my phone and squinted as I tried to make out the caller ID. I was met by a picture of a girl with curly red hair and a giant smile. _Paige_.

Paige was my best friend turned S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. She had been a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent since last April when crazy Russians tried to kidnap her and use her as ransom because her parents were actually Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff. After that S.H.I.E.L.D. had decided that it was to dangerous for her to go to a real college so they had sent her to a super fancy spy school. I only knew about the spy school bit because I had met her for lunch four days ago.

_"He's got more than just mad skill,"_

I didn't exactly like the organization that Paige had joined, but, as she had pointed out to me, there would always be people chasing her. Joining S.H.I.E.L.D. would keep her safe.

_"He's got a beaver tail and a bill,"_

I pressed the answer button. "Yello?"

"Lexi, thank God," Paige said from the other end of the line in a whisper. It was hard to hear her because there were gunshots in the background. Some spy school training thing no doubt.

"What are you doing calling me at two AM?"

"We're under attack," she breathed, "S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised."

"What!?" I glanced over at Kendra to see if I'd woken her up. I hadn't. "What do you mean compromised?"

"Their getting closer," Paige didn't answer my question, "Look, Lexi, if you don't hear from me in twelve hours, call this number. I'm texting it to you right now."

"What? Texting me what? Who's chasing you?"

"Don't lose this number, it's important."

"What do you-" the line went dead.

I watched as the '1 new message' icon popped up on my screen. True to her word, Paige had sent me a number. A random number that belonged to a random person that I didn't know. _What was I supposed to do with that?_

* * *

Ella was sitting at the counter, her dark hair pulled back in its customary ponytail, looking incredibly bored. You'd think that since it was the last day of finals a coffee shop as popular as The Coffee Stop would be packed full of student but it was not so. It almost seemed as if the last day of finals had had the opposite effect. The Coffee Stop was silent. The only customers that we had were two teenagers who seemed to be too besotted with each other to even bother to ask for a refill.

I placed my bags behind the counter and pulled my curly black hair back in to the required ponytail, glancing at Ella, "Slow day?"

She smiled. "You have no idea," she said, "it's been like this all day."

"Maybe everyone got the plague," I suggested.

"Maybe," Ella shrugged. "You'd think since it was the last day, everyone would be in here cramming."

I shrugged. "I still think that everyone got the plague."

Ella laughed just as one of the besotted lovers asked for a refill of his coffee. She glanced over at them, rolled her eyes, and then skipped off to refill their coffee. "Those two better be good tippers," she said, coming back behind the counter.

"They've been in here that long?" I asked.

Ella nodded. "I think it's a new record." She pulled out a notebook and scribbled the names of the two lovebirds down along with the amount of time that they'd been sitting there. I glanced at the several names filling up The List of Loiterers, as Ella called it. "Speaking of lovebirds," Ella said, and I groaned knowing where this conversation was heading, "how'd it go with Eric?"

I rolled my eyes. "We weren't speaking about lovebirds, and it didn't."

"That bad?"

I shrugged. "He's not really my type."

"Nobody's your type." Ella said and I smiled, she would know.

Ever since the fall, when her own relationship had crumbled with the classic 'it's not you it's me' line, Ella had taken a keen interest in my relationships. She had set me up with guy after guy and had been pretty disappointed as I turned down guy after guy. Not that it was her fault, I just had standards. And those standards were incredibly high. Getting a date was not an issue, but finding a guy that I liked was.

"I just don't want to date anyone right now," I said.

"I can understand," Ella said. She hadn't dated anyone since Al broke her heart. She said that it was because she wasn't interested in anyone, but we both knew that wasn't true. She had fallen off of her horse and then it had trampled her. It really wasn't a surprise that she didn't want to get back on. "What about Alex?"

I shrugged. "Not really my type."

"I thought you said you didn't have a type." Ella shot me an accusing look.

"Well, I do now. And Alex is not my type."

"Taylor?"

"Not him either."

"Jackson?"

"Nope."

"Hank?"

"Definitely not."

"Nate?"

I paused and glanced at Ella. "You really want me to go out with your twin brother?"

"Right," Ella said, "forget that I ever said his name."

"Will do," I said as my phone rang. It was the default ringtone. None of my contacts had the default ringtone. I glanced at it remembering the strange call from Paige earlier that morning. Maybe she was calling from a different phone. I picked it up. "Yello?"

"Alexandria, don't hang up-" I did just that. I hung up before the person on the other end could say another word. I was really not in the mood today. Then again, I was never in the mood to talk to _him_.

"Who was that?" Ella asked.

I shrugged. "Some solicitor."

"What were they trying to sell you?"

"No idea," I said.

"How was calculus?" Ella asked after a moment.

"Easy." I said. Pretty much everything academic was easy for me. I had been third in my graduating class, and easily had the makings of a nerd. If it hadn't been for Paige and her penchant for getting us in trouble, I probably would have been a nerd. "What about you?" I asked.

"I've been done with finals for the past two days," Ella said.

"Then why haven't you gone back home?"

"Nate's not done yet. And we're not exactly our parents favorites at the moment." Ella's parents were both doctors, so naturally they had expected Nate and Ella to be doctors. They had been more than disappointed when Ella had announced that she wanted to be an English teacher and Nate had said that he was going to be a theatre major.

"You're parents are seriously still mad at you for that?"

"You'd be surprised how long they can hold a grudge." Ella rested her elbows on the counter, "Every time I go home my mom lectures me in Vietnamese about how I'm wasting my life and I will never be happy as a teacher."

"That's rough," I said.

"You have no idea. You're lucky that your mom supports you."

"Yeah," I muttered glancing at the clock, "Speaking of Nate, where is he?"

"He should be done soon," Ella said. As if having heard her Nate burst through the door panting.

Nate and Ella looked enough alike that you could tell that they were related but not so much that you could tell that they were twins. They both had the same colored hair, eyes, and skin, but apart from that were pretty different from each other. Ella was shorter that Nate by a good five inches, plus she always wore dresses and skirts that looked like they were from the 1960s. As far as I knew, Nate only owned about ten shirts, all of them from different plays and musicals that he had been in or seen. At the moment he was wearing one from _Oklahoma_.

"You have got to see this," Nate ran up to the counter and grabbed the TV remote from behind the desk. He turned on the TV to some news channel that was showing scenes of destruction throughout what looked like DC.

"What?" I asked, my eyes fixated on the TV.

Nate shot me a curious glance. "I thought you would know about this. It's been on the news all morning. I thought Rising Tide would have some info on it."

"I haven't had time," I said. I had come straight from my calculus final to The Coffee Stop, not bothering to check my computer in between. "Why? What's going on?"

"One second," Nate said, "I'm relishing knowing something before you do."

"Oh, shut up," I said, grabbing the remote from him and turning up the volume.

The screen turned to an announcer, who was shaking his head at all of the damage and destruction. "That's right folks," he said, "it turns out that S.H.I.E.L.D. has actually been Hydra this whole time."


	23. I make a phone call

I took my eyes off of the image on screen and glanced at Nate. "How long has this been on the TV?"

He shrugged. "Most of the morning. Why?"

I didn't answer him. Instead, I grabbed my backpack from under the counter and booted up my laptop. All of a sudden, Paige's strange phone call made sense. She would be a prime target for an organization such as Hydra. She was worth a lot.

"Okaaaay," Nate said as I pulled up the Rising Tide server, "I thought that you'd be happy about this. I mean, S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't exactly your favorite organization."

My eyes flicked up at Nate, his eyebrows formed a crease as he tried to figure out why I was unhappy. It was kind of cute, in a weird Nate sort of way.

"I don't like S.H.I.E.L.D.," I said, "but Hydra is way worse."

I looked at the screen. Nate was right, news of Hydra had been blowing up the server since early in the morning. If only I'd've checked sooner.

"Yeah, but you've been complaining about S.H.I.E.L.D. since before I met you."

"That's true," Ella added.

I looked from Ella to Nate then quickly at the computer. "Do you remember the girl that came in here a couple of days ago with the bright, bright red hair?" I asked Ella.

"Yeah," Ella said, "she ordered a regular black coffee. Her name was Paige or something."

I nodded, surprised that Ella remembered so much, but then again, Ella always remembered the small details. "That's my best friend, Paige Martin. She's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. This morning I got a call-" I stopped. The call! I had totally forgotten about it.

I pulled out my phone and plugged the phone number that she'd sent me in to my computer. Rising Tide had the phone numbers of everyone in the nation.

"Um, Lexi..." Nate was looking at me strangely.

"Yeah?"

"You got a call, and?"

"Oh, yeah. I got a call from her this morning telling me to call this number if I didn't hear from her in twelve hours."

"When was that?"

I glanced at the clock on the wall. "Thirteen hours ago."

"Let me get this straight," Ella said, "Paige Martin, a girl who is your best friend and S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, called you this morning because she was running from Hydra?" I nodded. "Why?"

I looked at my laptop as it slowly pulled up information tied to the phone number. Why had Paige called me? It would've been better for her to call _Hawkeye_ or _Black Widow_, but instead she had called me. Why? What could I do that the Avengers couldn't?

"I have no idea."

Nate kept looking from me to Ella then back at me. "Who's Paige Martin?" He asked.

Ella rolled her eyes. "She's Lexi's best friend. Have you been listening at all?"

"I have," Nate said, "but I've been a little distracted. By the way, Lexi, your phone's ringing."

I looked down at my phone just as it began to ring, expecting to see Paige's picture. It wasn't. It was the same number as from earlier. I hit decline.

My laptop finished bringing up the last of the files connected to the number that Paige had sent me. It was mostly phone bills, all of them registered to a-

"You guys ever heard of anyone named Laura Barton?" I asked.

The twins shook their heads.

"Why?" asked Ella.

"Because that's the number that Paige gave me," I said.

Paige had told me to call the number if I didn't hear from her. Perhaps Laura Barton was a code name for a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house or something. I stared at the name for a moment. Why would Paige want me to call Laura Barton? Did she want me to get information from this Laura person? Did she want me to tell her what had happened to Paige? Did she want me to-

I froze as my thoughts finally clicked in to place. I picked up the phone and dialed the number that Paige had given me. Laura Barton picked up after the third ring. "Hello?"

"Laura Barton?"

"Yes."

"Hi," I said, "My name's Lexi, I'm a friend of Paige's, and I was wondering when the last time that you heard from her was?"

"I talked to her last night," Laura said, "Why? Is she in trouble?"

I glanced at the TV screen, showing videos of helicarriers crashing on top of S.H.I.E.L.D. "Have you been watching the news Mrs. Barton?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"Then you know why I'm calling. Do you have any idea where Paige might be?"

"No," came the response, then, "Wait, she's at a S.H.I.E.L.D. academy."

I remembered this from the last time that I spoke to Paige. She had told me about having to lie about it to her parents. "Do you know which one?"

"SciTech," Laura said.

I searched for the SciTech S.H.I.E.L.D. academy in the Rising Tide data base. One result came up. Apparently, the location was classified, but it was generally thought to be located on the east coast, a fact that wasn't that helpful. "Do you know where else she might be?"

"No," Laura said. Just when I thought that the conversation was over, Laura asked, "Are you going to find her?"

I paused. Was I going to find Paige? Surely that was why she had called me. She thought that I would be able to save her if Hydra took her. She always had too much faith in me, it was one of her faults.

"Yes," I said.

"Good," Laura said, "Call me if you need any help."

"I will," I promised, and, with that, the conversation was over. I set my phone down next to me and looked up to find both Nate and Ella staring at me. "What?" I asked them.

"You're going to find your friend?"

"Yes."

The twins shared a look, then said at the exact same time, "We're going with you."

"First of all, that was creepy," I said, "Second of all, no."

"Why?" Nate asked almost in a whine.

"Because, I don't want you guys to get hurt."

Nate huffed and Ella rolled her eyes. "We won't get hurt," she said.

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Look, it's a risk that we're willing to take," Ella said, "And we both want to help your friend. She seemed nice."

"I couldn't ask that of you," I protested.

"You didn't," Nate said with a smile, "We volunteered. And besides," he said before I could protest any further, "you don't have a car."

I hated it that he was right.


End file.
